The role of men in modern families

Why would anyone interpret this economic reality to mean that fathers therefore would diminish in importance to those families simply because they may no longer be the primary bread winners? It is a discriminatory and sexist statement, as it represents at its core the battle for identity that women who are stay-at-home mothers have been fighting for centuries – in essence that simply because they don’t earn traditional salaries does not mean their importance in their families isn’t equal to that of breadwinning fathers.

Applause

That the question is being raised is sexist. Men are human beings and have inalienable human rights. 

http://www.talkingaboutmenshealth.com/cancer-not-an-equal-opportunity-killer/

Manhood hasn’t gone away, it’s just shooting off in all directions, and society is having a hissy fit trying to categorize us.

Actually the whole subject makes me almost despondent. Why all the hysteria? If there’s a subject inclined to bring out the observational bias of a commentator, it’s this one.

Why all the fighting? Neither gender is intrinsically evil, so lets just fix it.

Greg Squires  “Neither gender is intrinsically evil”. I agree. However, there are those who still think all men are rapists. Those who make such statements do not realize how counterproductive such statements are to their own cause. If they are aware of how damaging such statements are , and they do it anyway they expose themselves, and their own misandry.

Giselle Minoli – Thank you for being you and calling out these sorts of shenanigans! Parents are parents, regardless of their gender, whether or not they work, where they work, how much money they make, or any other metric typically used to assess gender roles.  Children need role models, people to teach them how to be compassionate to their fellow human beings as well as how to be productive in a society that often seems anything but.  There are parents that pull it off solo, and there are parents that pull it off together with someone else (regardless of gender or sexual orientation).  The question is obvious click bait meant to sensationalise (negatively) the progress that women have made by demeaning fathers and putting them in the position solely as a Y Chromosome contributor.  Nobody deserves to be put in that kind of position “Oh, ‘so and so’ is only there to give me Z chromosome, otherwise they’re worthless.” where Z = either X or Y depending on the gender of ‘so and so’.

I’m my daughters’s father and I do everything I can to be the man that they need me to be so that they can be the people they need to be in order to have the most enjoyable lives possible.  That’s enough for me.  If it’s not enough for someone’s particular worldview, “oh well”, I’m not living, working, and loving for them.

“Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings, and not by the intellect.”

-Herbert Spencer

“We compound our suffering by victimizing each other.”

-Athol Fugard

I really appreciated Brad Harrington’s contribution to the debate – http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/06/03/what-are-fathers-for/behind-the-data-on-breadwinner-mothers

“This shouldn’t be a competition pitting women against men. The progress that really matters is whether all American families are doing better. When we once again see the trend toward greater prosperity for all American families, then we will have a cause for celebration – and a truly meaningful headline.”

The question is an on-key pin stuck in the reality of the American paternal ideal. You may not like what it implies, but that doesn’t make it wrong. The end of the day is that there is a major portion of the world that defines fatherhood as two things:

1. Being big enough to physically impose on children.

2. Being capable of bringing home money.

As we hide our barbarism under increasingly numerous layers of falsehood, the former becomes less important, and if the latter wanes then there is a legitimate crisis of purpose for fatherhood. There shouldn’t be, perhaps, but the fact remains.

Rather than being upset at the asker for the phrasing of the question, be upset at the society that necessitates the question.

Gabriel Fitzpatrick With all due respect, it doesn’t imply anything to me, I see it for what it’s worth, an attempt to sensationalize a very tedious subject. Not to mention that most people will never be honest enough with themselves to every truly come to an answer that is born of virtue

Gabriel Fitzpatrick Yes that should have been the question and I hold the unknown person who penned that line responsible.  Society didn’t write the line, and editor did and could just as easily have written a more all encompassing introduction to the debate. Or, for instance, the question could just as easily have been, “What aren’t fathers for?” Choice of words matters…and I do understand your underlying point.

Giselle Minoli “What aren’t fathers for,” in addition to being really silly, wouldn’t have conveyed the crisis that exists. Their headline conveyed the real news of this situation, and initiated a dialogue. It also asked a question that is genuinely coming to exist in the common psyche. Blame whomever you want, but this needed to be asked. Again, maybe it shouldn’t need to be asked, but that is as may be.

I accept that Giselle Minoli. I understand that it can be very difficult to adjust to a rapidly changing society, even world. Change can be difficult or even traumatic. It’s very possible to lose your purpose as understood.

The challenge and solution is to reinvent those altered roles. It’s only the implication sometimes made that those roles are somehow second rate or inferior that I find specious.

It seems to me that in a way the more things change the more they stay the same. The idea of redundancy is predicated on replacement, and so the hierarchy so complained of is simply undergoing a gender change, though that’s no doubt just transitional. Conversion to a matriarchy can be gradual. I do notice a certain glee in vengeance from some quarters. And if some feel better for it, I really don’t mind as long as actions are ethical.

But we’re creative. Everything’s changing quite quickly. Bickering over the crumbs it seems to me.

Fathers Are Not Funglible. Nor are mothers. Agreed. In my personal opinion kids need at least two people to care for them, either their mother & their grandmother, their mother & their other mother, their mother & their mother’s sister, their mother & their brother-in-law, their father & their other father, their father & their father’s sister-in-law… I could go on, but the word “single” is traumatic (both for parent and children). Accept help, donate help, give help. The more the merrier!

Kurt Smith My “answer” is that people tend to live their lives by cultural “stories,” rather than digging down deep for what is authentic to them. I recently wrote an essay for The SynaptIQ+ Journal for Social Era Knowledge about working my way up the rung as a (very) young executive at CBS Records. It never occurred to me, not once, that I would hit any kind of stumbling block. I saw myself as simply getting up every day and being the best of who I was. When I encountered “but no this is a job for a man” it was stunning because I thought, “A woman cannot do this job?” It was in the culture of CBS Records that certain jobs belonged to men and I was an interloper.

I think something similar is happening here…perhaps because for so long the only territory was was a woman’s territory was the home, men are being spoken of badly within it. Not by women, mind you. I know women whose husbands Stay-at-Home and they have deep love and respect for them (and forgive my language not including same sex couples…to be honest I’m not sure how to phrase those relationships in a non-confusing way). It is the outside world that is raising its eyebrows and making conclusions about what this means rather than seeing it as an evolution in our relationships, which has been a long time in the coming, I think…

I am new to g+. I came across your comments and must say that you have spoken out in support of common sense and social value.  Thank God that everyone doesn’t hold the point of view of the NY Times.

Matt Miniatt thank you for turning us all onto Armin Brott…and his campaign to make men great fathers. But what a disturbing statistic about men’s health. To say that they have lower socioeconomic status…that’s a first for me.

James Barraford Phil Bryant’s statement is stunning. Perhaps he should propose a bill in the Mississippi Senate that propose that no male spouse is allowed to die, leaving his wife alone to foot the bills. I really don’t want to threadjack my own post, but he also ought to address the numbers of divorced fathers who don’t pay child support and how many women are left living under the poverty line with their children as a result. Wow. And here you have the reason that this characterization of a Stay-at-Home spouse, whether it is a woman or a man, as being less important is so very dangerous as a belief system.

Giselle Minoli I live in the Santa Clarita area, great place to live in Southern California. Because of your husband, I know you can relate on many levels. Thank you for welcoming me to your post 🙂

We can’t be that important. Ask my ex who moved to Sweden with my son in 2010 and has been alienating me since.

Well, I know better. My son will, too, in a few years.

Giselle Minoli I saw it first in the eighties. Lowering the social status of men began with open hate speech, before hate speech was even defined. As we all know now, hate speech is a form of violence. 

Isaac Vielma For both my boys’ I was a stay at home dad for the first five years. Now my oldest works at a hospice, and my youngest is studying for vet tech. What would I want with money? I have two brilliant sons’ that light my sky. I love them more than life itself.

Oh and this is why no one reads the NYT’s anymore. 

Greg Squires Could it be supposed that as humans we have grown pretty suspicious of anything ending in “archy”? What is needed here is a realization for the need of a partnership involving all. Not just those protected by a third on the pie chart with redundant legislation (vawa I’m looking in your direction). Lets protect everyone from violence. Kids too. I think we can afford to do that, can’t we? Granted some people are worried about the cost of sharing. Some of this dose come down to money. I never though for one minute that we were ever broke as a nation. There is enough to go around if people find it in their harts to do so.

The fact that the Times is posing this question reeks of backlash to me. There’s something downright nasty in the spirit of the question. It’s like they’re saying “see, women, you wanted it all , you got it, and now you’ve written those men right out of the script (and don’t dare complain because it’s the fault of your great ambition!)”

As Brian Tomlinson said – it’s link bait at its more creative and manipulative.

Giselle Minoli Not that there’s anything wrong with the word “feminist” of course…

Giselle Minoli – it has been wonderful to connect! I’ve been having my own little  G+ renaissance lately and diving deep into the conversations you host has been the pinnacle of that!

I’ve been really focused on gender politics and women’s issues lately. It’s always a passion of mine, but things seem to be coming to a boil. The time has come to have these conversations openly – and since G+ is such a diverse place where men and women come together to really talk, it is the ideal space.

Yes, he is you troll spy Matthew Graybosch. But unlike most trolls who ar hit and run drivers (you might have noticed I deleted 3 of them today), he left a comment and it bears answering for the record. Thanks for looking out for me, Matthew… It takes a village.

Giselle Minoli”  I hope you have a good solid support system. You need it.” I can’t help but feel threatened by that statement. I wonder if you are sensing the hostility that I’m sensing from you right now.I feel that your a very angry person. Hostility is very counterproductive. Especially when that hostility is projected at people who agree with you. Or are you making these statements because you feel secure in the fact that you can bring the gender police into this and get me cuffed on the spot. We show power when we do not exorcise it.

Matt Miniatt my comment was clearly in support of _your _ comment to Todd Norden…divorce is not easy. I wrote: “I empathize with both of you (you and your son) and, like +Matt Miniatt I (too) hope you have a good solid support system. You need it.” I have no idea how you could so thoroughly have misinterpreted that, but you did.

Giselle Minoli I guess it was the “you need it” part that was surprising. You have to admit it sounded a little edgy. lol. I guess I’m still in recovery from the ptsd I’ve developed from talking about this issue. I’m sure you already know.  🙂

 Giselle. Misunderstandings among friends is understandable. I love My wife of 23 years, but we some times clash over silly things. Make up sex is the greatest! Anyway. I’m sorry. I also want to thank you for the support you have given to parents with your articles. Your words strike home like truth. Gotta sleep now. Give my regards to your loved ones.

Matt Miniatt ’tis true what you say about clashing over silly things. Off to bed with you, but promise you’ll stop by again? Thanks so much for participating today. Seriously, everyone, I think I met around 16 new people today (mostly men…a few women) and I am grateful to all of you. Consider yourselves Circled (beware!).

jyothi sriram I know exactly what you mean. You are indeed fortunate and it is such a powerful relationship. Your father must be very proud of you. And the opposite is true for little boys, Yes? To understand women better through their mothers? Recently I wrote a post about a man who was many things in my life, who passed away in March, who was a very special man…and a great father to his own son. If you are curious: 

https://plus.google.com/104028329852681318179/posts/QcrNBY9ytFT

Lance Hagood Keeping things trim. I am stealing that. As an aside…what was the post I got a notification from you on (that was Limited) and it vanished off my screen as I was reading it and I cannot find it). I get different notification on my ‘puter than I do on my phone…

Where to start Matt Miniatt. Ones enveloping culture is so important here as Giselle Minoli has mentioned. The prototypes that have pertained to my immediate history in England are very different to the US. From John Lennons ‘A working class hero is something to be’, to Marx’s idealisation of the proletariat contorted by the russians, the appetite for freedom from imposed order within this essentially liberal society would mark me as, as well as many others here I suppose, as more inclined to social reinvention. My father took pride in teaching me the longest word in the english language when I was a child, ‘antidisestablishmentarianism’. He was educated in a grammar school in the north of England, and there is a cultural context there that I inherit.

During the First World War, in particular, villages would be bound together into regiments for reasons of morale and loyalty to kin. Born together, die together. Later, anarchy in the UK, and no revolution. Society ripe for orderly transformation, indeed demanded by some, usually the least powerful.

The feminist argument is understood here in my petri dish as a variation on a theme. Prototypes in the US are so very different I think. Sitcoms on television showing ideal organisation, from The Cosbies to Family Guy, the post WW2 experience, military structure and so on. A huge internal economy that in the past accounted for a large proportion of GDP, and a belief in the rightness of the American Way. And having lived there for a short time I can say that there are many things to admire about it.

The American Dream is or was real, and it had its prototypes. Around the post WW2 explosion of wealth in the US you’ve built a huge infrastructure and I would say idealised limits upon incursion into it with faith in God and the constitution. The light on the hill.

So much investment in this set of ideas is all the harder to alter. Whole cities tuned to a purpose changed, The american auto worker, an icon understood outside the US through characters like Bruce Springsteen with a spanner and greasy levi’s, no longer so potent. That man, or woman, would prefer not to visit the foremans office, unless for a raise.

Now what? There may only be office jobs of one kind or another left as an option for large segments of the working middle class.

The question posed by the NYT begs the question of the males utility by observing this change in economic function and purposely restricts interpretation to that singular fact, and context connected to that fact. If a fathers value is his paycheck, then without a paycheck he has no value. Discuss.

We love ism’s. There’s always idealism.

Morning everyone and apologies for disappearing into the depths of a writing deadline…  Tom Broad I know that it can be time consuming to really spell out what you mean, but I appreciate you taking the time to do that…the assumption of “troll” comes from a comment that isn’t fleshed out and leaves so much room for misunderstanding. I get your comments above. Looking back on my own life and all the women and men I know who have struggled with and against labels, part of the problem with “liberation” is that we tend to hold onto whatever it is that we think we have, if we think that’s all we are going to get, or will be allowed to have. So tending children becomes the purview of stay at home Moms and those mothers who don’t stay at home are criticized. Working and climbing up the ladder becomes the purview of Dads and if there is a Dad who doesn’t aspire to that or flat out rejects it after having Been There Done That, he is looked at sideways, often by men and women. Doing anything differently raises the eyebrows of anyone who is afraid to take a risk in their own life.

But I would like to offer another definition of “being kept.” There are partners who have provided the traditional “sustenance” for a family (I’ll put you through law school, if when that is over I can write my book….) while their significant other is doing something else. This is also a family and relationship choice and has nothing to do with “being kept.” 

Greg Squires it’s taken me a while to ponder your comments, which were interesting and well articulated. I couldn’t get to it yesterday and am glad I couldn’t because last night I watched a PBS special on the history of musical theatre on Broadway, which centered very much on Jewish songwriters. You made reference to television and while many people (I’m not saying you) pooh pooh sitcoms etc., what those who do don’t realize is that, very much like theatre, new ground is broken in terms of acceptance of family evolution, relationship evolution, interracial marriages and relationships, the blended/step/non-married family, sexual and gender identity issues, you name it. Just as musicals like West Side Story and South Pacific explored tolerance of and acceptance of our relationships with people from other cultures, while we are still backward in some ways, we have indeed come a long way, baby.

Support for same sex marriage is an example of that – most Americans are now for it, because there is someone in their midst, if not their direct family, who is most surely gay. But there are political parties whose power (lobbying in Washington) is based on keeping things status quo. Yesterday in the Times there was a report on Exxon Mobile refusing to “support” gay issues, while most big companies have realized they have to get on board. Exxon is powerful and rich and it’s hard to make them budge.  We have managed to reinvigorate the car industry here and I think manufacturing will come back.

But with this new culture, invigorated by women getting graduate degrees and entering the work force more and more, and with the number of women who are taking political office, it is bound to balance out a situation that has been unbalance for a long, long, time. “Balance” strikes fear in a lot of people because there is a theory that someone always needs to be in power, to have the upper hand. Maybe corporately that’s true, but in a family, with two parents, neither should be under the other’s thumb.

I can’t tell you how many men I have met over the years who feel choked by the traditional definition of what it means to be a man. I know men who didn’t want to follow their fathers into the family business, but felt they couldn’t say No. I know men who caved into family pressure to take up a particular profession. So, Tom Broad I’m not so sure that they are indeed anymore free than women. What is clear is that it is all changing.

No they are not, Tom Broad, which is the reason that I made this post. I have always questioned the “assumption” that children of divorce should always be with their mothers. I know many who don’t want to be, but the courts won’t allow it. As for single mothers, having had a single widowed mother, I can say that growing up without a father is tough.

I’d like to respond to that when I get a chance Giselle Minoli. It’s late here so it will have to wait, but just on television and the large American entertainment industry, it wasn’t a negative. The UK is very different of course, with free to air commercial television being much smaller in scope and influence than the BBC. But in another country of which I am also a national, Australia, television is and has always been highly Americanised. I’m staying there at the moment and they are still showing Get Smart and The Brady Bunch.

I’ll expand later and perhaps you’ll find what i say in respect of differences in cultural expectation relevant.

But in general I found the sense of community and strength of family connectedness to be outstanding virtues when I lived in America for a short time. Part of this I concluded was due to the renowned religiosity of American life.

This and other reasons I think are relevant to the discussion, so I shall expand upon them later.

There isn’t a day in my life that goes by Tom Broad when I am not asked why I didn’t have children. However, I have the privilege of being a stepmother and I was lucky to get to know my husband’s youngest (his son) because he was still at home. A woman doesn’t have to just be a biological Mom to have an impact as a mother/mentor/adult figure. This is true for men, too.  Bruce Feiler wrote a fantastic book called A Council of Dads, about his decision, when he was diagnosed with cancer, to ask a group of men to mentor his daughters should he die. He didn’t, thankfully, but I think it’s a powerful idea. A Council of Dads. A Council of Moms. While it is true that children are resilient and will adapt if you take things away from them, I do think they need the stability and emotional support of healthy adult figures in their young lives. It makes a huge difference. Thank you for taking the time to read that essay.

It is indeed tricky Matthew Graybosch and Tom Broad. No, certainly no all boys Matthew, and if that is the case, Tom, all girls are being robbed of a potential benefit because of some of the people. I do think constructive, non-predatory, safe and nurturing relationships outside the family can prepare kids for the variety of adults with whom they are going to have to contend in the working world.

fathers can love too

a fathers love contributes as much, and sometimes more, to a child’s development as a mother.my daughters can atest to it.

Good point! But I feel this should not only be discussed on special occasions.