http://www.emma.de/ressorts/artikel/kinder-jugendliche/vater-im-rock/

Basically a father discovers his young son who is 5 has a preference for dresses over any piece of clothing. In a fairly religious rural part of Germany this kid obviously didn't make a lot of friends with such a "strange" outfit. Rather than chastise his son or tell him that's how society is the father decided to also start wearing dresses to make him feel normal.

"Yes, I am one of those fathers who is trying to raise his children with gender equality. I'm not one of those pseudo-intellectual daddies that rambles on about studying gender justice, and then, as soon as the child is born, falls back into the comfortable and clichéd gender roles: he realizing himself through work, she taking care of the rest."

A couple of thinking points that arose for me when reading the article-

- If this happened to you as parent what would you do? Would you endorse it like this father did?

- Is it our "duty" as parents to make sure our child knows what society deems as normal and abnormal?

- Is forcing gender roles a lesser evil than letting your son get used to a choice he doesn't yet understand the consequences of?

I'm not sure what I would do about letting him wear dresses- I almost certainly wouldn't do it myself. How about you guys?

This is both a good and bad thing.

That's a great way to make him the biggest bully target at school. Keep telling him that its normal and act like it. That'll make the son stop doing it

I've never understood why "gender equality" changed to "there is no gender, we are all the same." This is a line of thought that I greatly disagree with.

As for the gender roles of "he works, she takes care of the rest/house/family," I don't see why it's become such a bad thing. Do we not give mothers enough credit for all the hard work and everything they bring to our life?

I greatly support women who want to work, but when it comes to having and raising a family, I sure hope one of the parents is there to actually raise them and support the family through other means than just money. Someone needs to be there to raise your children, and as much as people might not want to realize, a father can never replace what a mother can give. We are biologically emotionally set up differently. (And I don't see why that's garnered such negativity in our society. Why can't we embrace our differences and give support to them? Why instead do we all search to become exactly like the next person and reject what makes us unique?)

What an idiot. The dad that is...
He is crapping on his son's future and then telling the world about it.

Both can be there to raise the children by taking turns, and a mother can never replace what a father can give.

Or at least I know that I would want to spend as much time with my child as possible.

omg why the hell do you quote "emma"?

that's the magazine of germany's most annoying person and feminist alice schwarzer^^

Yeah, because my entire post was about how mothers can completely replace fathers, and that fathers shouldn't spend time with their kids. Spot on!

Anyways, for the one sensible part of your post, how do you propose they take turns? 

that's a pretty cool thing for the dad to do for his son.

Whether or not he should be enforcing societal norms is a debate but I don't think "he'll get bullied unless you make him stop" is a reasonable argument. Lots of people including myself got bullied quite a lot for getting good grades and looking nerdy, I wouldn't want my parents to tell me to dumb myself down and get a tan just to appease a bunch of assholes in high school.

He is most definitely not crapping on his son's future. He is showing the world that he is willing to ignore man-made social norms in favor for his son's happiness and current clothing preferences.

You call this dad an idiot, I find him inspiring.