I’m in a very small minority of dads that get let out of the house after work and it’s to go play table tennis. I was talking about it with another dad and we both concluded that both of our wives seem to crash out when they’re home alone with the kids for extended periods of time in a way that we just don’t. Like we have no issues putting on Bluey, airfrying the nice Costco chicken nuggets, passing out some crayons and cracking a beer. My wife plays volleyball in a women’s league once a week and nobody notices or cares when she’s gone. When I go play table tennis once a week I literally have my kids begging me not to go and my wife quietly hoping I’ll just skip it. It’s not that there’s some conspiracy against men or anything, it’s just what seems to be happening in families these days. For instance, I have met a lot of dads that were into Warhammer growing up, and there’s interest in starting to play together, but I just don’t see too many guys with the ability to, build, paint, and play an army. I guess what I’m getting at is that there’s an almost autistic fixation on fairness when it comes to getting to do extracurricular activities and a lot of couples seem to find parity by doing absolutely nothing, that way there’s no argument about who’s getting out of the house more. This leads us to our current situation where married ppl just socialize a lot less than they used to.

You really are kind of blind to how much more public spaces favor dogs over children until you have children and then it becomes appalling. It’s like getting a pair of those sunglasses in “They Live” and then becoming actually aware of the world you’ve always lived in.