SUBURBAN HUSBANDS: GORILLAS IN OUR MIDSTBy Lisa Earle McLeodwww.forgetperfect.com If a kid falls down in the woods, can a man hear it if a woman is present? Not if she is his wife. Why is it that the same guy who can spot the model number on his neighbor's chainsaw from 500 feet doesn't even notice when his kid is gnawing on poisonous tree bark right under his nose? Women have long complained that men aren't as attentive to the kids as they are and some have suggested that perhaps they're just not wired for it. Yet I have observed many a dad who does quite fine on his own, but becomes suddenly inept the minute a woman, especially his wife, shows up on the scene. It's like they turn off their parenting eyes and ears whenever a woman is present. I was at the zoo recently and happened to catch an up close glance of the "I thought you were watching them" syndrome so common in modern men. My kids and I were exiting the gorilla habitat and we walked past a dad watching his toddling child. The mother was sitting 15 feet away and she looked like an exhausted mom who desperately needed a moment to herself. She occasionally glanced over, but it was clear, that by mutual agreement, dad was in charge and she was taking a breather from her wiggling kid who stood banging his hands against the big glass wall. As the little one got wilder and wilder, every mom in the zoo could see exactly what was going to happen next: the toddler slipped off the bench and tumbled to the ground below. Before dad even realized his kid was down, mom sprinted over, scooped up the kid and gave the father the evil eye. She probably would have marched herself and the baby right out of that zoo - but the gorillas aren't allowed to leave their cage. That's right, this typical little male/female scenario didn't involve the humans watching from outside the glass - it was the gorillas within. And it proved once again that all the nagging in the world cannot rewire the male brain. In "The Female Animal" "[Oxford University Press, 1985], author Irene Elia observed that when a mother and father monkey are sitting together and the baby monkey cries, the father won't react. He acts as though he can't even hear the baby. But if the mother isn't around and the baby cries, he will get up and attend to the infant. I'm sure the ape's moms find this just as annoying as their human counterparts, but this maddening behavior is so obviously intuitive, I have to wonder if things will ever change. Are we woman doomed to 24/7 child care forever? Or, is evolution eventually going to work its magic on the minds of men? I'm no Jane Goodall or Dian Fossey, but I think I can translate what Mama Gorilla was saying with all her grunts, snorts and dirty looks; "The one time I ask you to watch your baby so I can get a break and you don't even notice when he falls off a ledge. I manage to carry him around all day every day while I dig grubs for your dinner and you can't even watch him for five minutes. I can hear him crying from halfway across the compound, and you're sitting there staring at that stupid glass like you haven't heard a thing. I swear you care more about watching those silly humans than you do about your own kids. I'm beginning to wonder if you're trying to do a bad job just so I won't ask you again." A scientist friend of mine once told me that organisms don't change until outside pressure forced them to. Any man will tell you there is plenty of pressure on them to change, but the evolution of a species does not happen overnight. It's not like we sprang from the swamps and started walking erect just because someone's mother thought it was a good idea. Evolution takes time, and when you compare most men's parenting skill to those of their fathers, they've made a bigger jump forward than a whale that learned to fly. Male "apes and humans" don't consciously turn off their parenting eyes and ears when a woman shows up. Give them credit for figuring out how to turn them on when she leaves. If the mother gorilla had taken a real break and gone out for banana daiquiris with her girlfriends, dad would have known he was the solo man in charge and risen to the occasion. The co-parenting concept was invented by the sex who evolved through collaborative work; substructure parenting is more genetically encoded in men. Left to their own devices, most men can blaze a decent trail through the parenting forest - as long as some woman doesn't make the mistake of hovering around trying to give them directions. Lisa Earle McLeod is a syndicated columnist, a nationally recognized speaker and the author of "Forget PerfectTM: Finding Joy, Meaning, and Satisfaction in the Life You’ve Already Got and the YOU You Already Are." (Penguin/Putnam) She has been featured in Real Simple, Essence, and The New York Times and seen on Good Morning America, Lifetime and FOX. Contact Lisa at www.ForgetPerfect.com if you would like additional columns. Editors: If you’d like to run Forget PerfectTM in your paper contact Lisa@ForgetPerfect.com. Column must include byline and photo. 
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