One quote that struck me in the beginning of Alternadad was, "The reason that dads shouldn't whine is because whether you're a dad or not a dad, your life stays basically the same. It's just a matter of increased responsibility. But once a woman has a baby, she's a mom, and the world demands a lot from moms. Regina understood this, and it made her nervous"(63-64).

In my second paper this was a huge part of why women are very frustrated with their positions as mothers. I don't know if it's a political, cultural, societal, economic kind of thing that makes the pressures on women so much more in terms of having children (generally speaking), or if it's really an innate kind of thing. Mothers are the ones that walk around for months with a tiny new life forming in their tummies and maybe that in itself is enough for women to feel more compelled to be responsible for their children. But in the case of adopting, do most mothers feel the same way, the same pressure, the same responsibilities? The only adoption reading we've had was The Kid, and in this case, there was no mother position in their family, at least, from what we read.

I'm really glad that Neal Pollack said this though, because he says how he's not that nervous about having a child while Regina is nervous about everything. He sees the difference between them as parents - the world expects a lot more from moms. There are also expectations for the ideal husband or father too, of course, which is why we also see movies in which fathers are the main characters. Even "Full House"and "Smart Guy"was more about fathers than mothers since Danny Tanner's wife died and Uncle Jessie and Joey are both male. Another example I can think of is "Smart Guy", a TV show about a 12 year old boy going to high school with two older siblings and has a single father. In both of these popular 90s shows the men are single parents. The main issues that surround them are raising their children without a mother, trying to find substitutes for that mother position once their children have become mature enough to accept another mother figure in their lives. Undoubtedly, these shows would have been completely different and even bland if the fathers were not single. I think that fathers do deserve as much credit as mothers in raising children, but I sometimes wonder if we give them too much credit when they decide or have to do more than the typical father role. For example, the friend Neal Pollack had, Ned, would take his daughter around and use this as a way of attracting women and flirting with them. Babies in general do attract attention, but when it comes to men that look like they're really loving fathers, girls just seem to melt. The idea of good mothers, on the other hand, seem to be less glorified (or maybe it's just that all of these readings lately have brought me to think so).