In this case, E stands for “erroneous”

Stuff like this drives me crazy.

I realize this is just one little e-card. It’s not even a physical thing – it just exists as a jpeg. (And however things on the internet exist.)

This was probably a Mother’s Day card at one point. But I just saw it today, because this “your ecards” thing has somehow merged with Facebook and George Takei to create the unholy trinity that I like to call, “Why is my news feed now composed entirely of semi-funny, oft-shared pictures??”

Anyway. “9 times out of 10 children get their awesomeness from their mother.” What’s being said here? Why are we leaving out the fathers?

I’ve been running into a lot of father-bashing (or father-ignoring) on all the pregnancy boards to which I am now addicted. A common occurrence is that a woman will start a thread about being upset with her husband about a specific incident, and then comments will quickly pile up about how “it’s different for the men” and “they don’t understand” and how “they’re not interested in the pregnancy.”

Based on this and similar stories, Drew and I started a running “joke” about how much more important mothers are than fathers, which is basically us just repeating how the baby doesn’t even know who the father is until they’re 3 years old, 7 years old, 10 years old. (We just keep exaggerating because that’s what humor is.)

But this morning, I had to stop and say, “We’re both just kidding…right?” because it’s kind of getting to me. Enough is enough. Dads love their children too, and contribute to their health and well-being and yes, even to their awesomeness.

Maybe I just grew up in a very lucky kind of household, where my parents shared responsibilities and were around us equal amounts of time. I would say I get 50% of my awesomeness from my mom and 50% from my dad. And I would say that with a totally straight face.

It’s possible I’m overreacting to a stupid Facebook share. I mean, such things happen. (Some time last year, a WP blog post about bullying made the FB rounds, and everyone yelled about how their kid is such a special snowflake, and they would kill anyone who said anything mean to their perfect and sensitive child. I’m sure my coworkers enjoyed my attitude that day.)

On the other hand, maybe we’ve seen enough of FB e-cards, and enough of comments under-appreciating fathers. Hmm?