Welmer

The concept of what a father’s role should be in the family is changing rapidly, and although this is deeply unsettling to many men, it may provide us with an opportunity to rediscover what being a father is all about. The provider/homemaker paradigm has been shattered by mechanization and the diminishing value of male labor. Men, particularly young ones, are no longer better financial providers than women. In a growing number of metropolitan areas, young women earn more than young men. Young men are not as well-educated as young women in general, and most don’t have what it takes to make good money in the specialized fields that remain largely male.

However, despite the trend in artificial insemination, most children are still conceived the natural way, and therefore have real, present, biological fathers. So for the many, many young men who are fathers, but could not be considered "head of household," what role is there to fulfill? Can we find anything besides the role of "provider?" Yes, there is something much better; something that comes naturally to us and can’t be replaced.

When the current situation first began to present itself in the late 20th century, one of the main arguments was that men should simply take on more feminine roles while women took on more traditionally masculine roles. But that idea was based on the contemporary view of "feminine" and "masculine," and the ideals of the mid-20th century were no more natural or less distorted than what we’re faced with today. Idealizing the 1950s, with its American suburban uniformity, made possible only because we were enjoying the fruits of global power and victory, is self-indulgent fantasy. And many forget the darker side of that time: the countless men who squelched their hopes and dreams to settle down and submit to its cultural dictates.

Another distorted perception that grew out of the changes brought on by the 20th century is that work was the realm of men, and the domestic sphere properly belonged only to women. Prior to mass transportation most men worked within shouting distance of where they slept. Tradesmen worked out of their own homes, and farmers in the fields surrounding their homes. Women also worked, keeping books, selling produce at the market, milking cows, etc. While in China, I saw illiterate peasant women selling food at farmers’ markets and, for keeping track of sales, using an abacus with great skill and efficiency. In pre-modern societies, including the West, women were essential economic contributors to the family just like men.

In times past, education of children fell mainly to fathers, who were more likely to be literate than their wives until fairly recently. Most men were involved in their children’s lives from morning to night; only infants relied almost entirely on women for care and nurturing. But this all changed with the Industrial Revolution, which took men away from their homes and put them to work far afield. To compensate for their absence, state-sponsored services sprouted like weeds throughout communities in the West to do the jobs fathers had previously handled. Inevitably, society’s view of a father’s role and responsibilities shifted from viewing him as an equally-responsible partner in child-rearing to a mere provider of goods and labor, and men became little more than draft animals. Is it any wonder that the law came to reflect this new reality and gave parental rights primarily to mothers?

The cruel irony of these developments is that the mechanization that originally removed men from their traditional family role has drastically lowered the relative value of their labor even as alternative social services have become substitutes for them at home, so many men find themselves neither economically nor socially relevant as parents.

As I mentioned before, the popularly offered solution is for men to take on more "feminine" roles. But that is a misinterpretation of the situation; actually, men now have an opportunity to regain some of the grievous losses we have suffered over the years. Many men bemoan their lower status as a result of not being able to be "good providers," but they don’t realize that this role is what lowered their status in the first place. When a farmer wants to raise a male calf as a working draft animal - a good provider of labor - what does he do? He castrates the young bull. In the course of the recasting of the American male as a reliable, subservient economic provider rather than a free man, he has been stripped of his essential, spiritual elements of masculinity. Being a father, in every sense of the word, is as masculine a role as one can have; it is the inverse of femininity, and it has been marginalized to the detriment of both men and their children. One need only think of the deep sorrow fatherless children, whether well-fed and clothed or not, experience to know how important it is for boys and girls to have the creative, energetic and liberating spirit of masculinity in their lives.

So rather than submerging ourselves in bitterness over the loss of a role that put us in this unfortunate position to begin with, we fathers should breathe a sigh of relief and give thanks for our renewed opportunity to be more than a mere gravy train. Now we can love and teach our children like fathers always have, and we can once again take on our fair share of involvement in their lives. In addition to sharing the fruits of our labor with them, we can offer ourselves as their companions and protectors.

What little boy would give up learning to ride a bike or fly a kite so his daddy could work all weekend to put more money into mutual funds? What daughter would give up the irreplaceable special attention of a loving, approving dad? Yes, as fathers we have a far, far richer and more important role than "provider."