America's Fatherhood Problem

We should get a little more real about this one, and sooner rather than later.

Do you see fatherhood (or masculinity) in America as in decline? Read on and holler at me if this is all bullshit, or if there are kernels of truth.

Let me take a couple of angles here.

The Perception From Women

As someone that inexperiences infertility who is with a woman who wants a slate of biological kids, and who has friends for whom pregnancy is semi-easy, I can tell you this is something I think about a lot, i.e. “What is the role of a man in a relationship?” Now, we can pie-in-the-sky the male role as “provider” or “partner” or “helper” or whatever. I think all those are true, but I also think there’s a baseline whereby if kids are wanted and the guy is part of not delivering those kids, everything else behind that eight-ball kinda fades in its own right. You can still have a cool life without biological kids, and I’d never argue that. But, I think it is a “baseline” for some. Obviously, baselines change.

All that said, there is much research/survey work in the past 5–10 years about how men don’t pull their weight so much as partners and dads. Here are two offerings on that:

1. What do husbands even do in their marriages anymore?

2. Do both partners eventually “quiet quit” a marriage?

The Anecdotal