Why Isn't Engaged Fatherhood the Modern Masculine Ideal?

David Brooks writes,

Many men have an obsolete ideal: Being a man means being the main breadwinner for your family. Then they can’t meet that ideal. Demoralization follows.

Ambition doesn’t just happen; it has to be fired. The culture is still searching for a modern masculine ideal. It is not instilling in many boys the nurturing and emotional skills that are so desperately important today.

Brooks draws on Richard V. Reeves’s new book “Of Boys and Men” to describe how modern men are experiencing an identity crisis. There are many reasons for this, but one is that women are no longer economically dependent on men. In the past, men were expected and required to be the breadwinners of the family, but this is increasingly no longer the case.

Consider these statistics from Reeves’s Substack:

Women are now the main breadwinner in 41% of U.S. households. Some of those are single mothers, but by no means all; three in ten wives now out-earn their husbands, twice as many as in 1981. Most mothers now work full time, and in almost half of families where both parents work full time, mothers earn as much or more than fathers.

Obviously, women should have the same work opportunities as men. But as Reeves puts it, “the transformation of the economic relationship between men and women has been so rapid that our culture has not yet caught up.”

This is what Brooks means when he says, “The culture is still searching for a modern masculine ideal.” Becoming the traditional family provider is no longer a reliable trajectory. Men need alternative models. This doesn’t mean they can’t still be providers, but to the extent that women take on that role, men’s roles need to be expanded, too. In other words, if men aren’t expected to provide, what are they expected to do?

Reeves and others suggest the answer lies in “engaged fatherhood.” Even if a father isn’t the main breadwinner, he still plays a vital role in his child’s life. Consider these sobering statistics published by the National Fatherhood Initiative:

Clearly, fathers still matter. And yet, engaged fatherhood (even if that doesn’t always include providing) isn’t lauded as an ideal the same way the working woman is.

I don’t know why this is, but I recently read something that would suggest part of the reason is that our culture values work over stay-at-home parenting, regardless of gender:

Jim Dalrymple II writes,

The fact that both men and women can work professionally today is a triumph. It wasn’t so long ago that women had few professional opportunities. Opening up more opportunities for more people, especially women, is progress. (And of course there is more progress to be made.)

But sometimes I like to imagine an alternative reality where gender equality didn’t mean everyone has to work. In this imaginary timeline, single income households are still common but are supported equally by men and women. Maybe 50% of married women are breadwinners and 50% are homemakers. And the same goes for married men, 50% work and 50% take care of the kids. It's an equal world but one with mostly single-income households.

[…]

We’ve moved toward greater equality, but at some point went from increasing opportunities to imposing the worst case scenario — constant work — on moms and dads alike.

In other words, the advancement of women into the workforce has led to more working overall and less parenting.

If true, this is a shame. We could do a lot of good for men and children by expanding the masculine breadwinner ideal to include engaged stay-at-home fatherhood just as we’ve expanded the feminine ideal in the other direction.