I am a huge sports fan and an even bigger movie fan. I loved the movie The Blind Side starring Sandra Bullock. If you haven’t see it the story revolves around Michael Oher an offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens. In the movie, he learns to protect the quarterback. The most important person on a football team is the starting quarterback and if he isn't properly protected it can really hurt a team. The Blind Side is aptly named because it is the side in which the quarterback cannot see where his tacklers or attackers are coming from.
Jay Cutler is a quarterback for the Chicago Bears. He had a tough season and was the primary recipient of the criticism for the losing season. His season has been over for a while after being benched and his team failed to make the playoffs. His performance is still getting criticism but it's not for football. It's for his skills as a parent.
An offensive lineman is usually there to protect his blind side but in the offseason he has no blockers for what is coming. He was blindsided by an Instagram post calling into question his skills and desire as a parent. Off the field he is just a dad. Dads get a lot of heat from everyone butone person shouldn't attack his blind side, and that is his wife and parenting partner, aka mom. His wife publically shared screenshots of text messages he sent to her while dealing with the kids for a day. What followed was considered by most to be hilarious.
Reading through the comments on the Instagram post I became appalled at the amount of people attacking him. I myself, became his sole protector, protecting his blind side. I called his wife out for dad shaming so much so that I was quoted in an article. Then later, the sporting world started sharing the story as well and mocking him for a lack of being able to handle the pressure in the pocket. All of this negative character attention could have been avoided if his wife simply thought before sharing.
The Jay Cutler incident came on the heels of another dad scandal. By now you have no doubt seen the new commercial from Similac showing parenting groups facing off in a park like The Sharks and the Jets in West Side Story. While including dads and moms of various beliefs they all unite to chase a runaway stroller which is ironically caught by a dad. While finishing with a seemingly beautiful sentiment they forgot all about dads and left them unprotected to ultimately be sacked in the tag line of Sisterhood of Motherhood. Then an amazing devout group of dads took to Facebook on Silmilac's thread promoting their new awesome commercial to complain about the tagline. They were hit with a seemingly low blow by the Similac representative that stated that dads were also welcome to the sisterhood of motherhood. Well thank you very much for the dose of emasculation.
We live in a world where it is seemingly okay for mom to call out dad. Some dads are called women because they don’t fit a certain ideal held by closed minded people. Hell, I myself have been called a babysitter which is impossible because I'm their dad. We need to stand up for ourselves and stand up for each other. We are members of the Partnership of Parenthood, not just sisters or mothers. We should recognize that we are a team and need to protect each other's blind side.
