Once men and women earn the same amount for the same amount of work, you can claim that equal hours constitute equal burdens. Until then, stay out of your judgments on family life, Mr. Douthat.
45
I think Americans are too focused on providing the perfect bubble world for their kids. It's all they can talk about.
23
It is sad that Father's Day is such a joke, and Mother's Day is celebrated with July 4th flare. Stop trying to force men to be women. We are different. Let's celebrate our differences and own them.
29
Douthat fails to mention what many working and stay-home mothers have observed: their mates prefer to stay at the office until the worst of the second shift has been completed. That way they miss the shopping, cooking, serving, cleaning up, laundry, homework, bathing. Dad can swan in just in time to read to the kids as they are put to bed. They get credit from Douthat for working longer hours and from their bosses for showing commitment. Win-win. Except for the mothers and kids.
62
“But as Robert VerBruggen points out in an essay for the Institute of Family Studies, “The Myth of the ‘Lazy’ Father,” when you add up housework, paid work and child care, married fathers today are doing slightly more work than married mothers.”
Prove it. And when our kids were little, my wife and I both worked. As a chef, I often worked 80 hours a week, but this claim? I’m gonna go with a “no” here.
40
Quote: "married fathers today are doing slightly more work than married mothers." Does this really have to be a competition? Seriously? smh
17
The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks. Be a good Dad. That is its own reward.
25
A trifle grim for my taste, this offering from Mr. Douthat.
6
The perplexed about child care should either avoid having children, or hire good nurses and, later, givernesses for their progeny.
2
It looks like this is the only article on Father’s Day in the New York Times. Overall I give the paper a failing grade for observing this day. Being a father is the great untold story, and parenting articles are inevitably told from the female point of view. I can’t explain the disparity, but it’s glaring as fathers basically operate in a narrative silence.
14
Whoever gets to stay home with the kids is the luckiest person alive !
The joy of spending hours each day with your kids is something I always longed for - but someone has to make enough money to pay for housing, food, clothing, medical costs, braces, tutors, vacations, insurance and college for the spouse and kids. Too often men are tasked with making this happen and when they sacrifice what they want most - quality time with their kids - they are ridiculously criticized for their sacrifice.
Fathers are finally being recognized as more than living checkbooks.
About time.
14
I wonder if the results of this study would shift if you were to compare the load of mothers and fathers only when kids are neediest - as small infants and toddlers. This was the time in my own marriage when I felt the most underwater, and when I have seen women at work express the most frustration with their spouses. It is also when I see women most frequently pull back at work. If so, then you wonder if women were more supported by their spouses during this time, if the rest of their working lives would play out differently, and women would actually end up taking on bigger opportunities at work over their entire lifetimes.
As an aside to Mr. Douthat, I do not think women's "self care" counts as leisure if that includes shaving one's underarms and legs, drying one's hair, putting on makeup, and getting one's hair dyed. These are base expectations at my workplace for women - they are not things I do as "leisure" or that I would do if I felt I had any choice in the matter.
31
I've been happily married for 44 years, together with her and faithful to her for 49 (it's beginning to feel biblical!) Here's the simple truth: IT'S NEVER GOING TO COME OUT EVEN. Someone always does more. Sometimes you trade off doing more. Sometimes it just comes down to the stronger one carrying the less strong in the overall interest of the relationship. I do all the male roles (handyman, manage the house, car and finances, primary breadwinner, LAN administrator, yard work, father the kids, etc.). I also buy all the food and plan and cook the meals. We recently became vegans - I did the research and shared it with her - her buy-in made it feasible. My wife is happy with kitchen clean-up duty, laundry, cleaning, etc. The clincher to our arrangement? She had my babies. She has given her very body in a way that I could never, ever match (even as an organ donor). She pays every day with various non-trivial infirmities that ensued from carrying and birthing our children. For me, that gives her a lifetime voucher for the very best chivalry I can manage. You'll need to adjust workload occasionally - so learn to fight fair. Oh yes, it really helps if you genuinely love each other.
36
Whoever stays home suffers, and learns.
10
Mr. Douthat, I’d really appreciate it if you’d stop trying to pass off right-wing orgs like the Institute for Family Studies, with its ties to AEI and various right-wing funders such as the Kochs, as anything like objective researchers.
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Family_Studies
I mean, look at their funders. Look at their scholars and who they write for: frequently it’s rags like “The Washington Times,” founded by the good ol’ Rev Sun Myung Moon. Look at their published statements of purpose.
And note that right smack in the middle of webpage the first is an endorsement by somebody named Ross Douthat.
I’’ve not the least objection to your airing your views: good for you, wish the Times paid me for such a thing. But please, try to be a bit more honest about your sources and purposes.
52
Why is Ross pitting fathers against mothers on Father's Day?
He is way off base in this opinion.
26
Surely the greatest gift that a father can give to his wife and children is the understanding that the children after grade 1 do not need constant supervision, that it is not a crisis to miss some of the kid's soccer games, that the child can safely be dropped off at Taekwondo or the park, and that the dad and mom can take the two hours of solitude for some rejuvenating and life affirming, um er, non-verbal physical reconnection.
6
I was raised in a working class family in a community where everyone has always worked. I thought housewives only existed on television. My parents worked, parented and did chores on alternating shifts. My father was in the army before I was born and fought in WWll and his time in the military taught him the discipline to keep things tidy, he taught us the proper way to make a bed and we kept our room clean and he was a great cook. We were all expected to pitch in. There are countless men who have always fully participated in both working and domestic life, out of duty and necessity, and would consider anything less laziness.
15
I have lived through the 1950’s, 1960’s 1970’s etc and I think the biggest societal change for men I have seen in my lifetime is the number of men today in their 30’s and 40’s who for one reason or another have never married and who live alone. This is a trend not only in America but in other developed nations, and I think it will ultimately have a transformative affect on western culture in ways we probably can’t envision.
‘
5
Please don't forget the wives and families of military men. Wives must function for two, sometimes for prolonged periods, and they do it while they work at their jobs. Military brats often become more self-sufficient and resilient because of their fathers' absences (and sometimes those of their mothers). Competence, self-assurance, and intelligent responses to emergencies are the payoff for their efforts and forbearance.
Semper Fi!
9
Why does it have to be a competition between the father and the mother? Or which parent gets the most credit for their time spent parenting? Who is doing the most... the mother or the father?
I find this discussion a waste of time and useless when it comes to trying to be a good parent and maintain a healthy and loving marriage. It is hard work for both.
Let's spend time talking about how all parents can find workable solutions to the challenges of parenting, working, maintaining a good life by shared household chores, etc.
12
What you call the "one income trap" is something else. The standard of living has been steadily declining in the US since the 1970's. It takes 2 incomes now to provide what a single income could provide a family in the 1950's and 1960's, .
30
I do not know where Mr. Douthat lives but unless you are a "dual-earner couple" or single income earning at least 200k/y with a mortgage on an apartment or house so you don't have to pay yourself to death in taxes, you will not be able to bring up your (one) child in coastal cities and save enough for retirement and college. There are jobs that are mostly or exclusively offered in big cities on the coast. What do you mean by "keeping up"? Does that mean we strive to have more Kale-lattes than our neighbors? A better Prius? Sigh. Of course, that also means that a lot of children are raised essentially by school and afterschool. That's probably good for most children (not yours, of course, reader of this comment, you are such good parents). With both men and women having to work, the point of who cares more for the kids in the evening and weekends becomes mute. I guess it's the person with enough energy left.
6
I got this upper-upper Middle Class, don't call you rich vision of you Ross wheeling your brood around the mall in their Bumbleride Speed Stroller.
In my neck of the woods, the exhausted father who has worked an extra shift just to pay the rent is pushing his brood around in a recycled stroller from Value Village that he worked on for a couple hours to get one of the wheels to stay on.
Yes parenting is difficult these days but the difficulties are relative. Expectations are high of both parents and their children. There is precious little time to be a parent or to be a child. I consider myself and my siblings to have been very fortunate. We were raised in a lower-lower Middle Class home, don't call us poor with a stay at home mother. I miss those times when I could count on mom being there when I got home from school with some fresh baked blueberry pie and a glass of cold milk. I miss the long walks with dad in the evening or listening to the Tigers baseball game on the front stoop.
My brothers and I wandered into friends yards and homes a lot as children. There were no such things as over supervised play dates that we were driven to. My parents were not obsessed with us all getting into Harvard. Much of the pressure today seems self imposed, relax let your kids be kids.
35
Happy father's day, Dad!
When I am with you and mom, you make the problems of the outside world look so small, so insignificant, so trivial.
I do not know how you do that, maybe you can teach me someday so I can try and be that for my kids.
Will love you always, for the things you taught me, from tying shoelace to telling time. Times have changed, my watch doesn't have hands, but I could tell time when I was in London last summer watching the Big Ben. Your lessons and those memories will always remain in me.
Love you and mom!
5
It's time for marriage and childrearing to fall out of fashion. We need to decouple government based economic incentives from marriage, focus on what is best for children (parents who make a commitment to raising them, not at all to their being in love forever), and mitigate the social, emotional, and familial pressure on young people to reproduce. Fewer children who are better cared for and better educated would be better for everyone.
16
@RE
Rock On.
4
Nowhere here do I see the option of housing extended family nearby considered. Yet this was an essential asset to the dual career couple I grew up with. Meanwhile, elders languish in single occupancy apartments. I grew up with two working parents, a lifelong resident Auntie, who also worked full time, and jealous of my friends who occasionally got a teenaged babysitter to torment. Auntie took care of Mom after Dad died and we kids moved away. Later, I took care of Auntie.
My father and brother were much less sexist in their role definition than their working wives, who barred the men from cooking the occasional pork chop or baking bread in their own kitchens. Dad, having spent his adolescence in a Depression-era orphanage, was just glad to have a kitchen.
Families are complex puzzles, and role stereotypes have a lot less to do with their well being than simple economics does. As my mother would say, "You want nice things, you have to work for them." With the family circle extended, it didn't mean giving up either parent to absenteeism nor exhaustion. We were very fortunate to have had it all, under one roof. Ozzie and Harriet is a myth, after all. About time to recognize that, not replace it with an even more dysfunctional one. Happy Parents Day - to all Old Maid Aunties, Moms and Dads.
15
My father is a very curious man, of the engineering type. Born in ‘36 in the UK, he spent a good part of his childhood running with a pack of fearless boys, hunting for shrapnel between bombing raids. He moved us to Africa in the early 60s, and among other things put in the first ground radar system at the Lagos international airport. By 1966, we were in Canada. After several failed employment ventures, he started a business brokering semi-conductors in the 70s and had the prescience to convince me to enrol in computer science in 1977. He had no formal education, but he passed on to his 5 children a good vocabulary and an awareness of the big wide world; of the opportunities that come with resilience and determination, and of the importance of having convictions and the courage to live by them. One of the triumphs of his life was to witness the moon landing; I don’t remember him ever being so excited. He certainly has his faults...he would have failed the “test” of parenting by nearly all of today’s standards. But his curiosity and infectious enthusiasm for what flows from ingenuity, grit and discipline gave me what I needed for a fulfilling and meaningful life. Happy Father’s Day Dad!
120
@Sarah Hurman Absolutely beautiful !
7
Speaking as a adult daughter on Father’s Day. My father was good guy. He was a great man. He was a nice man. He loved his beautiful wife and his children. He was our leader. My mother and father were the nicest and smartest people I have ever known. They are both gone now. At the end of his life my father said to me “ I love all of you kids so much. I don’t know about my four siblings and can only speak for myself when I say I still miss him everyday. His wisdom still informs my decisions. Happy Fathers Day.
84
My husband and I did a reasonably good job of splitting the house chores and were, thus, able to raise 7 children. We both worked full time outside the home throughout. We would not have been able to do this had we not divvied up the housework more or less equitably. However, there were times when we scheduled parties just to force ourselves to do a good clean up of the house.
The place where I felt disenfranchised was at work. When my male peer missed a faculty meeting to take one of his kids to the pediatrician, everyone crowed about what a great dad he was. When I announced that I was pregnant with my second child, the guy at the research foundation whose job was to send me information about research grants for which I might apply decided I wasn't serious any more and stopped sending me information. Also, when the university for which I worked finally initiated a parental leave policy, women often felt sheepish about using the benefit. Over a 5 year period, 13 men in the Department of Chemistry took parental leave. No women did in part because there were fewer women than men but mostly because they were afraid of being adjudged no longer serious about their careers. This type of disparity was common throughout my 38 years on the job.
163
Depends on where you live. I know a man who has nursed his chronically ill wife for 25 years, in addition to working full time. She's too ill (severe fibromyalgia) to accept a paid caretaker. I'd say 50 to 70 % of the kids dropped off and picked up from local schools are being accompanied by a father, not a mother. Of course, in my day, no parent was 'needed' for those tasks. Also, grocery stores are filled with dads, not just moms.
6
I'm 68 We raised our daughters together and made very successful careers in medicine (her) and academia (me) . She nursed the children, I cleaned and carried the Breast pump and was responsible for stored milk. I did all the cooking and could even iron pleated skirts. ETC etc etc. Later my lovely brilliant wife got Alzheimer's and I was her 24/7 365 caretaker for over 5 years. You step up to the plate and do what has to be done.
433
@Vince
A life well lived, captured in one moving paragraph. Thanks, Vince, for the lovely Father's Day message.
49
@Vince
You the Man. A real man. Thanks for sharing.
49
@Vince You are a good man. Can’t help but compare you to the ‘father’ in the My Father, Out to Sea opinion article. We should not romanticize absent fathers.
28
My mother stayed home while my aunt was a school teacher. My mother was miserable and my sister and I never understood why. She died young. My aunt always had her work spread out on the couch when we visited. When she retired she had a circle of colleagues she socialized with. It was obvious to me from childhood that a career made a difference.
18
As I am reading this my husband of 40 years is cleaning the bathroom. He’s good at it.
When I get up off the couch I will vacuum and dust. Yesterday I spent about 3 hours in the yard. My husband shopped and made dinner.
It works itself out after awhile.
11
I rolled my eyes when I read this. I single essay from a conservative family think tank apparently obviates all the empirical studies that demonstrate that women do the lion's share of housework, and child care (and please-- none of this mom just brings it on herself by not letting the kids just go off somewhere and play by themselves). In addition, most mothers work outside the home and are payed only .70 on the dollar paid to men. Yes, a wonderful Father's Day to everyone, but let's not pretend we are even close to parity in the home.
51
@Laura Thank you! I was wondering (as I have so often in the last three years) if I'd gone completely insane and if the reality I experience is completely different from that of everyone else around me.
Luckily, there are numbers to save us! I wonder if Mr. Douthat bothered to check any of the other analyses that counter his argument, or if (as usual) he allowed his foregone conclusions to lead the way.
For example, the OECD suggests that, worldwide, women work approximately 30 minutes more per day than men when paid and unpaid labor are added together. In the U.S. that gap is far smaller (487.4 minutes for women to men's 482.7), but in the UK women outstrip men by 16 minutes. In China, it's a whopping 44! https://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?queryid=54757.
As Laura said, a Happy Father's Day to everyone! My father works as hard as anyone I know. And my husband has always been and continues to be a full and willing partner in raising our son and maintaining our home. I celebrate them both today. However, Mr. Douthat's reactionary suggestion that men are really the ones getting the short end of the stick would be laughable were it not so sickeningly symptomatic of conservatives' larger campaign to diminish the role of women in American society.
15
Ross demonstrates his lack of depth and insight regarding parenting. I had come to believe that he was devoid of these qualities only in politics, societal minorities or government priorities. I was mistaken.
If Ross re-wrote the article and called it "My Reflections On Being a Dad" his parenting experiences might be interesting or amusing. It doesn't matter how you split up the house work or who does the shopping. What matters is that you raise wiser kids and avoid paranoid parenting. Teaching your kids values such as "how to play, a work ethic, helping others, taking care of oneself, not to rely on charity, and the value of an education. Ross - if people smile at you in the grocery store when you have your kids with you - you should see what they do when you take your dog in with you. No not an informative or accurate article.
9
The workplace needs to catch up. Need shorter facetime hours, more flex, and true parental leave for both dads and moms. Then partners can work as a team instead of struggling to make do in a system designed for male breadwinners with wives at home.
11
Let's face it: Being a parent isn't always pleasant and often we need to make personal sacrifices for the family's greater good. It's what we all signed up for when becoming parents. Our parents weren't always happy being parents either, and we saw that growing up. Life's hard. That's the fact. Deal with it. You don't always (or often) get external kudos for being a good parent, and being a good parent is really its own satisfaction. For me, Father's Day is an annual reminder that basic lesson.
6
Hidden between the lines of this column are the two very real problems confronting parents these days. (1) there is a strange requirement that we keep track and measure everything; and (2) there is a profound neediness among people that they get the credit they deserve.
The very best part of any meaningful relationship is that there is no score card, and love and concern for one another replaces the notion of credit.
22
Dads have a bad deal.
Society keeps on piling on more and more that they should be doing or else.
8
As long as both partners agree and understand their roles, the angst discussed in this op ed is moot.
3
"couples that might prefer a single breadwinner"
Really?
You think those struggling to survive on two underpaid, insecure, unreliable, uninsured, likely abusive incomes like it that way or feel obliged to go with it to win some neighborhood competition among families?
That explains the dogma, ego, and rigidity coursing through your commentary. And your dunderheaded lack of awareness of life down in Real America.
I live in a paradise on earth with fields, flowers, rivers, parks where the baker calls me if he sees my kids looking lost. I have nothing to fear except the niggling awareness that reality happens.
Some kids who go play in the creek (very few, thank goodness) don't make it back home.
That's not an irresponsible shrug, a lack of care, concern or effort. Its a recognition of the gift of continued survival, connection, and growth.
A recognition of the unfathomable arrogance of believing spending the money, the time, the labeling and avoidance of bad people, is some sort of guarantee. The source of the smug conviction you deserve something others do not.
I am surrounded by neighbors wise and aware enough to recognize reality happens to people exactly like them: it doesn't define who you are, and it certainly does not give you the right to define, to judge, to dismiss others.
It appears you choose to live in a place, attend a church, exactly opposite.
I am deeply, deeply impressed you figured out the BabyBjorn though.
7
This is all nonsense.
The problem is capitalism, forcing us all to work multiple jobs just to survive.
It’s not social values or religion or feminists.
The problem, from the beginning, is capitalism.
30
If questions of equal effort plague a marriage to the point of miserable disfunction, get a 50/50 custody divorce. Then there are no questions of equality. Two separate households. I did it, couldn't be happier, my place is awesome. A great father's day for me and best of all, no unwarranted complaints from my complainy ex.
5
If questions of equal effort plague a marriage to the point of miserable disfunction, get a 50/50 custody divorce. Then there are no questions of equality. Two separate households. I did it, couldn't be happier, my place is awesome. A great father's day for me and best of all, no unwarranted complaints from my complainy ex.
2
LOL. Please, ross. The Institute for Family Studies, a conservative think tank, that proudly bears the following accolade, front and center on its website:
Praise for IFS
“IFS scholars and writers have brought a welcome rigor to arguments that often generate more heat than light, and grounded the case for strong families in hard facts as well as first principles. Winsome, Witty, and Engaged with America as it actually exists, they’re doing their part to transform the culture wars we have into the debates that we desperately need.”
~ Ross Douthat, Columnist, New York Times
14
I certainly agree that skepticism needs to be brought to any ideological source, whether the IFS, the National Review, or your favourite feminist academic journal. But unless you are asserting the numbers have been falsified (which is a serious charge), then the question is - what is it about the data that you think has been unfairly presented. You can disagree with the editorial commentary, but to credibly back up your skepticism you need to explain why the data does not mean what the author says it means. I suspect the author of this post would accept blindly data on the male/female wage gap presented by a left wing source (which of course has led to conservative commentary addressing the left's manipulation of that data to make an ideological point - see, for example, The Factual Feminist commentary on youtube). Be skeptical of your ideological enemy, but debunk them with data, not platitudes.
8
Although I agree with the methodology of the study there, I disagree with some of the implications. As a society we SHOULD value all work equally and yes the distribution of work in a family should be equal among spouses, however housework/childcare continues to be grossly unappreciated. Yes this includes when men do it as well, but women general bear the brunt and housework and this makes them suffer at their job as far as promotion and pay, thus reducing independence. Money matters even in a happy marriage. I believe this is what contributes to the grievance of most women. That and housework feels more personal, so when one neglects it then the family feels neglected by that individual.
Bottom line: We should understand and fix the problems with work distribution but at the same time respect each other. No one wants to feel like they aren’t trying or don’t care.
4
In dual income households there has to be an ebb and flow to the workload. It takes an understanding that sometimes, one person has more time to give to household chores, cooking dinners, driving the kids places, etc. At that point, you don’t grouse about how the other person is not pulling their weight. When you do, there are deeper issues at hand. I am fortunate that I married a man whose own father contributed to the upkeep of the household and rearing the kids. We have two girls and I hope what they take away is the need to be in an “equal opportunity” marriage especially if raising children.
4
On Father's Day, let us take a moment to treasure the contributions of the single fathers. Single fathers face all of the economic, emotional and time burdens of a single mother, but in addition have to navigate a societal system for children dominated by women. Mothers have no respect for male caregivers, and treat their input as ignorant by default. The backbiting commentary that women have for each other is only exceeded by the contempt they have for fathers who participate in child-rearing. Few women will give any credence to the child-rearing views of a man; they resent any male entry into the female monopoly on the institutions that care for children. Female teachers in particular treat male single parents with a mixture of disdain and pity. As a followup to ignoring the views of a father they will comment what a difficult job single parenting is and a wonderful parent the father is. Left out is the silent " ... for a man" that is written all over their faces.
I was widowed in 2008 when my children were 11 and 9.
On Father's day I encourage you to think of the plight of the male single parent.
15
@Tom Meadowcroft Amen.
5
For Ross: you’ll be pleased to know that the neighborhood kids still play in the creek at the back of our lot just like our kids did in the 90s. Of course, we live in a small town but...anyway, thanks for the thoughtful article.
2
From the article, “At the same time, maybe women’s longer home-hours reflect genuine female preferences, a widespread maternal desire for part-time work, and not just the dead hand of patriarchy.”
The issue at hand is that a woman should have free choice to decide to stay at home with the children, work part time or decide to have a full time career in a demanding field.
Women should not be forced into homemaking by legal means or workplace discrimination. Nor should women be coerced by patriarchal sensibilities or pressure from family and friends.
Also, in my opinion, the recent abortion restriction laws have some to do with evangelicals attempting to disrupt the careers and education of upwardly mobile women in an attempt to get them married and back in the home through forcing more births. That the birthing process will make these women rethink their career paths. Just my opinion.
You will know you have true equality when the number of stay at home dads is roughly equal to that of stay at home moms. When it becomes routine that a stay at home parent could be of either gender.
12
Douthat, will you remember the fathers separated from their kids at the border and placed in tents? Happy Father's Day, indeed. Shame! Verguenza!
15
Very thougtful article on father's day! One nice thing about living in our country ( The US) is that we have choices on how to approach life decisions, and can learn from the experience of others with eyes wide open. The comments here are excellent as well. Thank you!
2
Just so everyone is aware, the brilliant social scientist (sarcasm) who wrote the "article" to which Douthat links is an editor for National Review (credible source) and simply repeats the same stereotypes that conservatives often repeat on this topic, complete with the absurd assertion that women naturally desire to spend more time with their kids than fathers do (and so we "shouldn't be surprised or offended" that they take cuts at work) because of several "facts" like "women know the children they deliver are theirs and women are present at birth". This "logical" leap is completely insane in the modern age where men are usually there at birth barring military deployment or spontaneous labor on the side of the road, and I think it's safe to say that 99% of the time men know the kids they are raising are theirs.
Ross, maybe you could give us some actual good data and analysis to make your point. I'd be open to it, but what you provide to substantiate your conservative beliefs is risible.
32
Isn't all this relentless number shuffling about just who comes out slightly ahead in the work category just a distraction from that fact that a few reasonable policies on equal pay, family leave, and universal day care would make life better for all parents?
17
The key insight necessary to obtain a feeling of "having it all" is for each parent to trust their partner to make actual parenting decisions rather than just delegating tasks. What seems to typically happen is that one parent dominates decision making and becomes frustrated when tasks are not carried out to their satisfaction by their partner. My wife fully trusts me to unilaterally make decisions regarding our children's medical care, working with teachers to address school issues, etc. By being empowered, I also feel motivated to give it my all. None of this is rocket science - this is just basic organizational psychology applied to the household. With that said, it took us many years to arrive at this point.
2
Reading Ross Douthat's patronizing columns make me want to scream, cry and laugh, sometimes simultaneously. We might as well be living on different planets.In my world, two salaries are necessary to pay bills and try to save a little for retirement, not to "keep up" (who is trying to keep up with what, by the way?). I and most of my female friends may have had a "maternal desire for part-time work" while raising our kids, but certainly could not afford it. The gender pay gap is still a very real thing. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/05/14/why-gender-pay-gap-still-persists-what-we-can-do-about-it/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c2860ab8c173
As for the downward trend in American fertility, lack of any kind of paid leave and medical insurance in many jobs, (never mind maternity leave), lack of affordable quality childcare and the soaring cost of education and healthcare probably have more to do with that than worrying about who the kids are playing with.
29
Tale of two sons:
One is a civil engineer in a responsible government position. His wife, a geologist, works part time and has primary child-rearing responsibilities.
Child two is a mechanic who works part time and has primary child-rearing duties. His wife is a consultant in health care/IT.
Both homes are clean, well cared for. The kids are healthy and happy. The marriages are healthy and happy. Their finances are no more precarious than any other wage-dependent arrangement.
That's about as "all" as it gets, in either case
13
This column is written from an upper middle class bias. Douthat briefly throws out the concept of "the two income trap," something I've heard conservatives argue, lamenting that women's entry into the workforce in the 70s and 80s is responsible for a type of micro inflation for the nuclear family--and has increased the cost of living with the expectation everyone should have two earners. Although middle class women may have stayed home to do the labor of childrearing and home making unpaid, the reality is that working class women have always worked, and such families were often two income earners. My grandmother worked at the same time my randfather did, out of economic necessity. My mother worked, to provide her children with educational enrichment and opportunities, at the same time my father worked. My father also took care of us, cleaned and cooked often after a full day's work, while my mother went back to school to become and elementary school teacher. There are many families like my own. Mr. Douthat would do well to remember that.
48
For every mother bemoaning the unwillingness of father's to pitch in equitably with child rearing and housekeeping please just stop looking for a perfect world. Dad's play a very different but equally important role including being the target of constant criticism. Hey we are what we are as there is no easy way to rewire our DNA. And let's not forget, Memorial Day was just a few weeks ago.
It is also important to ask just how well that "fatherless" thing is working out for countless poor women across the country. As a teacher who sees the impact of dysfunctional family life, trust me, children are almost always better off with us than without us.
6
@rab
Great point. Seems everything wrong in a Family these days is the fault of the Husband/Father.
The Wife/Mother's all appear to be innocent. They don't have any impact, but pure and positive ones.
6
@Boregard
Just take a look at hoe Dads are portrayed on TV and in movies: bungling incompetents who are the brunt of jokes. #fatherslivesmatter
4
For every mother bemoaning the unwillingness of father's to pitch in equitably with child rearing and housekeeping please just stop looking for a perfect world. Dad's play a very different but equally important role including being the target of constant criticism. Hey we are what we are as there is no easy way to rewire our DNA. And let's not forget, Memorial Day was just a few weeks ago.
It is also important to ask just how well that "fatherless" thing is working out for countless poor women across the country. As a teacher who sees the impact of dysfunctional family life, trust me, children are almost always better off with us than without us.
2
I don’t say this very much, but thanks Ross for the good piece. When I saw the headline, which no doubt you had nothing to do with, my first thought was no don’t tell me Douthat, Mr conservative is falling for the “everybody can have it all” belief.
Instead it calls for cooperation, decency and compassion in trying to be a good husband/father.
3
The blame, if that's the word, for the yet incomplete metamorphosis from old time dad to modern parent, belongs with the economic realities of stagnant wages (since the 80s) and a government that favors corporate welfare over the good of the people.
For a very rich country, we are really a stingy nation. Other countries provide parental leave, day care, good public health and great public schools, while we still argue if dads should take time off for a new baby.
Suppose we tripled the pay of the bottom two-thirds of the workforce and offered generous leave for work-life balance. Suppose we ran the country for the people and not for the corporations.
For 20 years after WWII, a family of five could live on less than $10,000/year. Now, that is the property tax on a 2BR house.
13
@Occupy Government
Wages stagnate for one principal reason: supply of labor outstrips demand.
You might have noticed two significant shifts in the labor market. First, beginning around 1990, women have flooded into the job market. That makes for abundant labor supply in a nation where white collar jobs, especially, fell on half the population. Second, the emergence of developing nations which have offshored skilled and lower skilled jobs alike: ask someone in the garment or software industry.
So, while you are snarking about our failure to embrace more Socialist policies, a hobby horse of the Left, you might explain how all of those macro forces are swept away.
And, when we triple the pay of our lowest paid workers (not to mention open our Southern border to unlimited immigration, how that makes our least skilled more competitive than, say, a worker in Asia.
I am not going to delve into the property tax remark. You need a broader grasp of inflation and many of the things here already enumerated.
And wasn't 20 years after WWII the height of the White patriarchy?
4
@Stuart
"Wages stagnate for one principal reason: supply of labor outstrips demand."
That's a very narrow POV. Labor as a huge, generic variable, maybe. Labor when drilled down into particular niches...then your statement fails.
Skills based jobs should be paying more, but they do not. Can you lay a roof? No? So you're out of that labor market. Can you build a foundation? No? You're out of that labor pool. Can you sell stocks on the floor on Wall Street? No? Out of that pool too.
Labor needs to be better addressed as not just one large group. Its a very layered and nuanced set. That arm-chair economists like you, like to deem Labor one thing, all the time, is whats wrong with how we make policy and invest in the jobs markets.
Huh, you know where I hear the most support for Socialist policies...from older, and/or un, or underemployed Trumplodites when you talk about taking away, or altering their Medicaid. They want it for themselves, no one else.
4
Tell your daughter to go outside and play and then go outside and play with her. As a child, I was told to get out of the house and go play which meant "get out of the way". Unsupervised, along with the rest of the neighborhood kids, we roamed far and wide. We had great times, but we saw a lot of things we weren't suppose to see: a man beating his wife, a man naked wearing only a coat, the abandon house where teenagers were having sex and the trailer with Playboy magazines. None of this was reported to our parents. When you were told to get out of house, you were to fend for yourself until lunch or dinner.
As a parent, I told my kids to get out of the house and go play, and I went with them. My husband and I played with our kids and the neighborhood kids. We didn't educated, instruct, or control everything. We did demonstrate how to settle disputes and remain friends and without punching each other. Our kids and the neighborhood kids are grown now, and my husband and I are still called to come out and play. I have a much better relationship with my daughters and their friends than I ever had with my parents. Happy Father's Day!
7
There are very few things about modern society that are more annoying then these “daddy men” doting over their child in their baby voices, asking them for permission to do everything from getting into the car to putting on their shoes “buddy, do you want to get in the car now?”. It’s not a choice when you’re 4yo! And you’re right, they seem to expect this nod from society of how great a dad they are. It makes me want to throw up. The only good that comes of it is that less babies are being born an thats what the environment desperately needs.
8
On point: I rarely if ever see young’s kids playing outdoors, with or without supervision
4
One's feelings about Dad change over time and should. My father could make flapjacks, buckwheat ones, for Sunday breakfast; that was about all his cooking amounted to and he did no other work in the house. But he made cement for a variety of construction around our house and work hard at it. He also started a business part time while also working at his regular job. So he certainly pulled his weight.
But this is not important as you think about Dad. About your disagreements with him and even battles. About how some of his punishments you still resent. About how the jokes he told were so corny but now you tell them also; in fact you have become in old age very much like him, in good ways and not so good ways. You have adopted late in life his gregariousness and willingness to talk to anyone anywhere. No shy person he! All in all, you realize he could have been a better father but he did a lot better than many fathers you know about. RIP.
8
In a world that is severely overpopulated, how do we justify a holiday celebrating gathering children? Have we not considered the recent point made by California Representative Norma Torres about oversexed males? As a nation, we need to move to a negative birth rate and create immigration policies that allow our population and employment needs to met by immigrants.
2
Americans in particular in Westerners in general consume way more in the way of resources per person than people in third-world countries.
2
OK INTERESTING ARTICLE. Though it omitted the basic fact that women are paid $0.70 for each $1.00 men are paid. If you factor that number into things, women come out on the short end of the stick much, if not most, of the time. Of course, that applies only i the bottom line is the most important thing--the raison d'etre--of the family. Which it most emphatically is NOT. One point I believe needs to be added. That the "war of the sexes" shows no signs of abating anytime soon!
3
Yep. The world needs more software engineers and fewer teachers.
2
"hanging out and chilling",did you read about child rearing from a book?pushing a kid in a shopping cart is not work.maybe you saw a film on some right wing tv channel about parent, or motherhood?
3
Moi? I am a way better ironer than my and thank god a bartender. Grilling, me too but that is a guy thing. Lighten up Ross, most people are able to figure out what works for them and their kids.
5
The main source Douthat cites as "proof" is a piece by the Institute of Family Studies -- which turns out to be a conservative pro-heterosexual-nuclear-family group who, notably, blurb none other than Ross Douthat on their webpage. Hmmm.
19
@Heidi
I noticed this too. Isn't it telling that he goes on to discuss the probably spin of "various ideological narratives" in response to this study, as if the study itself should not be questioned because of its interpretation of data that is, more than likely than not, an example of ideological narrative spin? Now that makes the head spin or, at the very least, bobble like the head on a sports doll.
8
Yes, fatherhood in our age of anxiety is difficult and so is motherhood. Part of the problem is a search for perfection in life and work. It is a fools mission.
Trying to be the perfect father, mother and parent is difficult. No, make that impossible. Better to lower expectations, loosen up, depend on God and lead a happier life.
Father’s Day prayer:
Lord God my spiritual father. Give me peace and patience so I can be forgiving, compassionate and have mercy on others. May I have the courage and fortitude to be loving and kind to everyone. I want to do my duty and be honest, truthfull and sincere always. Give me the wisdom to love and be generous and charitable with my friends and be strong and show valor when facing my enemies. May I endure gracefully my defeats and celebrate with joy and humility my victories. In unity with you as you guide me through this life may I be diligent in seeking holiness and wellbeing as your justice is done. Guard my soul from trespass and give me solidarity with my fellow Americans. Amen. June 16, 2019
"Like any interesting datum, this slight paternal edge in work-hours could be spun into various ideological narratives."
Well, Ross, they could, but why try? I often find your columns exhausting given your level of analysis, assessment, and hypotheticals.
Must ideology color everything? Can't it just be said that, in 1955, things were simpler because they were? That many women were "just housewives," because of full employment in a post-war boom of switching the economy from wartime to consumer goods?
And that of course parenting is more controlling today because life in general is more dangerous?
One of your consistent themes is lamenting both declining birth rates and broken marriages. But rarely do you address the fact some people never had a chance to marry or that some who do may opt to forego children from a belief that every child should be wanted instead of expected.
I guess what I'm trying to say is marriage and children are often not as simple as choosing one from column A, and two from column B.
Men and women may be as much victims of circumstance as of active choices--meaning, ideology has nothing to do with it.
4
"I could never forgive myself if ..."
A golden rule of parenting is: if you ever hear yourself uttering, or even thinking this, then you must ask yourself whether you maybe mean it literally, whether you are being selfish, more concerned about yourself than your children.
Being ultra-cautious with our children is selfish - we free ourselves from worries, at the expense of the freedom and growth of our children.
As Ross writes, let's spend quality time with them but also let them play unsupervised in the creek sometimes ...
1
Even after decades of 'male bashing', I've observed that families that have 'good husbands and fathers' present have a distinct advantage over those that don't......on average.
So happy Father's day, Pops!....rest in peace.
Or am I missing something here?
4
Good grief Ross,
What a dire description. But it is an apt one in certain households.
Unfortunately this is not a current day curse. This has always happened in certain ways. The real bogeyman is probably our desire to keep up with the Joneses.
We can confuse need with wants. So long as Americans think they need, rather than want, all of the material things that their neighbors have, who might be able to afford them more, this is what happens.
But back to your comment that men do more around the house than they used to, including more parenting. It is only in certain households that this is true. That said, I think it is incredibly important that a couple share parenting and household duties. It can be extremely healthy for the relationship. It definitely shows respect of one another and your children.
I will say that I admire my sons for their willingness to assume more responsibility when it comes to parenting and household upkeep. They still have time for themselves and personal pursuits as well as my daughters-in law.
They grew up in a dual income household. I had a great husband who always pitched in. And I was shocked in the beginning, as I grew up with a dad who worked, came home, sat and read the newspaper. I never saw him pick up a dish and this is what I expected to happen in my household when I married.
I was pleasantly surprised. It was not Feminism that caused this. It was humanism, respect and trust for each other. We had healthy egos too.
3
"Only when the wife works full time and the husband stays at home is there a clear advantage for dad in hanging out and chilling."
lol.
1
Punditry over parenting is just plain crazy. Parents are a lot more concerned about getting dinner on the table and fighting the War on Squalor than about political nonsense and militant psychobabble.
6
This article was put out by this partisan organization, which has been widely discredited. Their conclusions cannot be trusted.
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Family_Studies
19
@Karen Carr Even partisan organizations can do reliable research. Your link merely states that the foundation is conservative and receives financial support from the Kochs. If you disagree with the findings of the article, please identify why. Dismissing the research because you think the researchers are biased isn’t enough to support your position.
1
Father's Day was founded in Spokane, Washington in 1910 by Sonora Smart Dodd.
But Father's Day had no success initially and it faded into relative obscurity until the 1930s when Dodd started promoting it with the 'help' of business trade groups that would profit the most from the holiday, tie manufacturers, makers of tobacco pipes, and businesses selling traditional present to fathers.
She also had the help of the 'Father's Day Council', founded by the New York Associated Men's Wear Retailers to commercialize the holiday.
Americans resisted the holiday for a few decades, accurately perceiving it as just an attempt by merchants to replicate the wretched commercial success of Mother's Day, and newspapers frequently featured cynical and sarcastic attacks and jokes.
But the business trade groups did not give up, seeing pure profits in exploiting fatherhood the same way they have exploited motherhood.
By the mid-1980s the Father's Day Council wrote that "... Father's Day has become a Second Christmas for all the men's gift-oriented industries."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father%27s_Day_(United_States)
Happy Business Trade Groups Day !
Now go jump in a creek.
(full disclosure: I'm a father)
8
And what of a father who spends a good bulk of his time working obsessively to create a world where his daughters bodies are controlled by harsh, punitive patriarchal laws.
22
“Like any interesting datum, this slight paternal edge in work-hours could be spun into various ideological narratives. “ Ain’t that the truth.
How ironic that Douthat’s “One Income Trap,” is derivative of Elizabeth Warren’s influential book, “The Two Income Trap.” How predictable that Douthat would take a swipe at feminism. How self-deceptive to fail to note that the main driver behind two-career families is the combination of the Wall Street-driven, conservative-enabled imperative to grow the wealth of a few while most experience stagnating income.
Douthat never misses a chance to attack modernity, pining for the good old days when God and Dad ruled the house, and Christians ruled the country, without pesky heathens objecting to either.
11
Yes on the child-watching. But as usual in these columns, theres one completely ridiculous unsubstantiated idea `the way that dual-earner couples establish a norm that forces everybody to work harder to keep up,'. How exactly is anyone else 'forced'?
3
That progressive school you send your kids to is likely not going to teach your daughters that their brother is the one who will be doing more work than them when he is a married person.
For all your conservative talk, it’s very odd that you don’t actually live out what you preach each week in this paper.
Would be an interesting column to read what your real values are and how much of what you write each week is just a paying gig.
When my kids were born, I took one to the market dressed in a three piece suit with a diaper bag over my shoulder. A lady commented I was the model of new fathers and I though, no, this is how fathers should behave. That was 40 years ago. Amazing that all these years later, fathers who attend to their children are still iconoclasts.
3
Gosh, you can't win, can you.
I was subbing in a school once--years ago--and someone (for a lark) had run off an old magazine article and parked it in full view on a table.
The article dated back to the early 1950's.
OH. . . .MY. . . . .GOODNESS!
The unquestioned assumption in this piece was: men are toiling for a meager livelihood OUTSIDE the home. While the ladies are toiling (maybe not quite as hard) INSIDE the home.
Sorry about that! But such is my recollection.
And when the pater familias--stained and sweaty from his honorable labors comes tottering in the door--
--even though the assumption ALSO was: the guy's a businessman, an executive, a white-collar guy--
--have a nice dry martini parked on a small table in the entryway.
Help him out of his jacket.
Encourage him to loosen his tie.
Conduct those faltering feet to an armchair. Plump him down in it. Feet up. The martini at his elbow. A cigar stuck between those pallid lips.
And you're telling me the myth nowadays is spot on? Will wonders never cease?
This is Norm, not Susan. I was a stay-at-home Dad. My wife was a chemist. I don't think she would have enjoyed stay-at-home Momhood. Her stressful corporate life I don't think I would have enjoyed.
When all is said and done--okay, I'm 'fessing up--
--I do think she was the harder worker.
She still is. Gotta work on that!
But I got to be with the kids. And that, Mr. Douthat--
--I wouldn't trade for anything.
3
I don't think it's as bad as this column says it is . . .
1
No they can't have it all, neither can women.
The two extremes are no good for the great majority of people, ie Neo feminists who insist men should become women and on the other side keep the wife in the kitchen and bed only men.
1
My father died in 1976. If he was alive today, he would be 116. I still think of him nearly every day.
A druggist by profession in Germany, he opened a little candy store here after barely escaping the Nazis with my mother in 1938.
An old-fashioned, formal man of very regular habits, he worked six days a week, was out on the bus stop by 7 AM, back home by 6:30 and in bed at 9:30.
He wore a necktie in his store and around the house, usually with his shirt collar buttoned-up to the neck.
He knew how to make good chocolates and delivered boxes of them to my teachers at Christmas and Easter and whenever I was in trouble at school.
Once a year he sent my mother and me to Atlantic City and joined us there for a few days.
He liked cats and kept two in his store -- Heckle and Jeckle -- to help him ward off the mice.
Always close to my mother, he treated his own mother who lived with us like a Queen.
As a former druggist he preferred honey tea, ginger and garlic over most modern remedies for coughs and colds.
An opera lover, well versed in Latin, Greek and botany, he never believed that I really understood baseball.
He liked chess, going to synagogue, watching the Ed Sullivan show, listening to the Metropolitan Opera radio program and downing one small tumbler of cheap rye whiskey just before bed, “for medicinal purposes only.”
He enjoyed reading and arguing with Time magazine, the New York Times, the New York Herald Tribune and the Wall Street Journal.
More to follow.
12
He had crinkly blue eyes and scratchy whiskers.
His favorite comedians were Sid Caesar and Charlie Chaplin.
He was not given to praising many people, but when he did, it was only people who possessed a “fine character.”
He was in the habit of bringing little things home from work for me. I can still recall receiving a magnet, an apple, a calendar, a compass, a tennis ball, a flashlight and a map of the world.
He could be a strict disciplinarian. Once when a salesman came into his store and offered him a very elaborate Erector Set for me, he turned it down for reasons he later explained to me as having to do with my speaking disparagingly about one of my Hebrew teachers.
He never took me hunting or played catch with me, but he did teach me how to save my allowance and fill out my own taxes.
Never given to open displays of affection, he was capable of rising to extraordinary heights of enthusiasm for even minor accomplishments on my part like my occasionally getting an A on a spelling test.
He had plenty of good reasons to be disappointed in me over the years, but if he ever was, he never raised them in detail with me.
Whenever I had a problem or needed help -- which was not infrequently -- he was always Johnny-on-the-spot in helping me to deal with it.
He always made a little ceremony out of signing the checks for my college tuition. The cost in those days back in the Fifties was about $500 a semester, not including books.
More to follow.
8
A touching tribute to a very fine man and to yesteryear , A. Stanton.
You’re a lucky and fine man yourself.
7
He had a few tough years at the end, but fought his life out bravely all along the way.
Separated now from his burial place by a thousand miles, I seek out synagogues near me to leave stones in his memory and say the Kaddish.
His birthday was in January. This year for the very first time in my adult life the day slipped past me unnoticed.
If somewhere down the road I ever get a chance to meet up with him again, I’m gonna kiss him on both cheeks, give him a very tight squeeze and say, “Happy Birthday Pop, Happy Father’s Day, Thank You For Everything, I Love You, I Been Really Missing You A Lot.”
8
At the end of the day, Father's Day, that is, it's clear to this dad (7 kids, 16 grandchildren), that we really can have most of it all. But it is unbelievably silly--and likely a bit arrogant--to say, as is often said these days, "we're pregnant" ... and any dad who says "we're in labor" should have his paternal union card revoked.
6
Only the Times and its readers can suck the joy from an otherwise enjoyable holiday. Everything isn’t about identity politics, and I feel for the children of folks who can’t enjoy a single day without faux-outrage.
5
One of the myths of feminism is that women can have it all, or more directly, have it like men. Men never have had it all. Being at work meant not being with family, and having one's role in the home limited to a few hours in the evening, then weekends, if one had a traditional 40 hour a week job. As a single father of two who had full custody, I didn't have it all, even then. I had to do it all, at least until my children grew more independent. I did learn from the experience that women have a closed society when it comes to play dates, helping out at school, and commenting on parenting. Men are outsiders. Running a household does take time, but it is not nearly as demanding any of the paying jobs I have held. My conclusion is that having it all is a game of envy. No one has it all. Some have to do as much as they can without help. But judging what you have by comparing to what others have, whether a job, a set of responsibilities, or amassed possessions, is just a way to make one's self unhappy. Wanting to have it all, no matter what it does intend, means not appreciating what one does have.
6
One part of this essay really stuck out for me: child watching time. I'm just over seventy, and when I was a boy I would have been thrilled to spend much time with either of my parents--especially my father, who I rarely got to see because of workload. He was a surgeon, on call and had early AM surgeries and was exhausted when he returned home. So, my brothers and I all spent most of our time out in the world, with other kids (and dogs) and unsupervised. We didn't get into much trouble and were untroubled by fears of strangers or busybodies. Mostly we fished, played ball or read comic books. And rode around on bikes, like princes of the roads. And then there was school, of course, which was a bit of burden. I do wonder what both children and their parents are missing with all of this child-minding time and monitored play. Playdates? If someone had told us that was going to happen we would have been mystified and probably rebellious.
5
I'm a dad who has always been the primary parent to my children. I also have a full-time career as a lawyer. As the male equivalent of a "working mom" I know exactly where the hours go.
Douthat cites a right-wing think tank (surprise!) for the calculation that counting "housework, paid work, and child care" a primary-parent mom is only putting in 62 hours a week of work compared to her husband's combined 63 hours. So the man actually works more.
Frankly, that's nonsense. There's a huge difference between what a non-primary parent like Douthat thinks counts as childcare and what someone who has been a primary parent REALLY understands it to be.
If you can't just decide to get in the car and drive away to hang out with your buddies because you've got to take care of the kids, even if they're asleep, guess what, that counts as childcare. If you've got to be there, you're on the clock. If you're grabbing a few hours of sleep, hoping against hope little Penelope makes it through the night this time, you're still on the clock.
The primary parent is NOT putting in 62 hours a week. She -- and it's still almost always a she -- is likely putting in close to 168 hours a week of housework, paid work, and child care.
Seriously, to think a primary parent is only actually working about sixty hours a week is like thinking firefighters should only be paid for the time when water is actually running through their hoses.
57
@JW
Thanks for this - as a former primary parent to my children- who are now grown-ups- you're so right. My own inculcation into true single parenthood as a result of my wife's death from illness increased my respect for single moms exponentially. A real single parent or primary parent( overwhelmingly female) works 24/7. But guess what- it's worth it.
12
i miss larry eisenberg
8
Excellent point, SSG.
His daughter Beth thanks you.
4
Sorry to read about your self-loathing, Ross. Good luck with all of that and try to have a happy Father's Day in between bouts of thinking you're less than equal. Start that Star Trek marathon and dream of the uptopian Federation to come in NNBNYC (New Non-Binary New York City).
FYI, no two people (regardless of sex) can contribute exactly equally to any task, parenting or otherwise.
2
If you are smart and wise enough to pick a white European American New York City real estate baron father then you can have it all as dad.
No collusion! MAGA!'
5
@Blackmamba,
And decided on reaching The Age of Reason at age seven, based on your white European American New York City real estate baron dad married five times, that you are going to take this life solo, happily married and remain childless.
Life often has a singular way of falling into place, or 'Our Lot in Life', as an African friend of mine happily married, and a grandmother says.
It's different with every family. My parents raised 5 kids. To do that, my mom was pregnant from 1949 to 1960. No small feat.
My dad, a WW2 vet, ran his CPA firm and worked morning till night. During tax season we never saw him. Come April 15th he was back. We had cleaning people come every week year round. My mom, a WW2 Navy vet, cooked. On weekends my dad did "outside" projects. My mom waited for him to finish so they could "go out". Parenting (such as it was) was hit and miss. But, it was the 50's, the war was over, and people just wanted peace and quiet. Little did they know the 60's were right around the corner...and all hell was about to break loose challenging every single norm, custom and practice.
4
After a divorce in 1954, my uncle wrote the following: 'My daughter was enrolled in the Convent of Sacred Heart and my son entered St. David's School presided by David Hume who at the age of 29 was the youngest headmaster of a New York school. On one occasion, our son did not show up at the school; no question was raised, as I thought he was with his mother and his mother thought he was with me'.
'For three days he played hooky around New York using his bus fare to buy hot dogs, and he became acquainted with the entire length of 5th Avenue from Washington Square. This was to be the beginning of an approach to life marked with considerable independence'.
'When the children were with me, I had the dual role of mother and father. Fortunately I had learned at an early age to cook and to do housekeeping, and to sew and iron my clothes'.
'One of the principal weekend activities for young school children was endless birthday parties for classmates, In turn, we had parties at our own house at which I would act as host for twenty or more young ladies and gentlemen. The noise and screams often left me exhausted'.
Here's to Edmundo, a lawyer, a military man, a justice of the peace and above all, a dedicated family man. They don't make fathers like you anymore, and remembering your last words: 'These years have been wonderful, and I am grateful to my wife, my children, our extended family who have made them so happy and memorable'.
5
Let's think about the single parent.
That parent does the job of each parent or at least attempts to. And they do this with only one income.
And I never see anything written on these tired superheros.
231
@esp
the heros are the parents that stay together to raise their children.
before the PC crowd throws out "...what about abused spouses" etc., no of course they shouldn't stay.
for other parents...choose to have a child, then choose to stay together and raise it.
13
Did a single parent make a poor decision marrying an abusive partner? Perhaps. But isn’t s/he and the children better off without the abuser?
14
@Matthew, so is that the only way someone becomes a single parent? No partner ever dies or becomes incapacitated? Does making a wrong choice negate the fact that a single patent ends up doing the work of 2?
32
On the birth of our daughter 28 years ago, we made the decision that I would continue working and her father would be a stay-at-home caregiver which was not the norm back then. He did that for 11 years and it was wonderful for our family. Now he is nearing retirement age and that loss of 11 years in the workforce is weighing heavily on the timing of his retirement. He paid less into social security so his benefit reflects that. Fewer years of working means less in pension income (state employee). His optional contribution into a 401(k) has also been negatively affected by the fewer years of working. In addition, during the time of living on one income, saving for our child’s college years was not possible so that we had to double down on that once he re-entered the workforce.
In conclusion, we do not regret our decision at all. But it has consequences to think about.
118
Dear MLA. In Canada, we have something called the Child Rearing Drop-out Provision in our Canada Pension Plan, the equivalent of your social security pension. It helps ensure that working Canadians (women or men) who take time off work for child-rearing duties aren’t penalized when their public pensions are calculated at retirement. Get your member of Congress to check it out.
39
@mla All those consequences are equally dire for the stay-at-home mothers and always have been. They are just more common, so accepted as a fact of female aging.
46
@mla. In all of my child rearing years I do not recall a single legislator or columnist being concerned about the loss of social security monies from my unpaid input into the economy. Only now, as many Boomers start to retire have all these pundits have their hair set afire.
Our problem is, and always has been, that as a society we pay lip service and little else to the labor of childrearing. Unlike many of our economic equals in Europe we do not provide childcare, we do not support healthcare for all our children and families and we measure social “wellbeing” by how great “business” is — but we don’t usually include a number for how well our families are doing.
Sadly, Douthat leads the pack in antediluvian attitude, because he most closely hugs the social arrangements and pecking order of the late 1940s and 50s. That world is GONE but the people who benefited most from it are still in charge and unwilling to change. That is why so many of our young families are so stressed and why retirement for women, who stayed at home to care for those families, often means poverty in old age — especially if they were divorced once those kids were grown!
36
My husband and I are so fortunate. We both work from home. I haven't been to the office in 10 years, he hasn't for more than three.
While we may occasionally work longer hours, our schedule is infinitely more flexible so we are able to be involved in his school. It is easy to get him to appointments, and we can take a break when he gets home from school to spend time with him talking about his day.
I know not all jobs can be done from home but many can. It would be wonderful to see a switch from valuing "face time" to valuing flexible time. Even being able to work from home one or two days a week can be so freeing for families.
2
Fathers, fathers, fathers. The NYT is awash in think-pieces about fatherhood today. Mother's Day receives no such attention, here or elsewhere. It is still a day of sentimentality. Moms and ads for flowers, jewelry, dinners. Moms, always Moms. The divergence in the way fathers and Moms are discussed on the two days is a reminder of how so far we still need to come.
3
Happy Father's Day. Being a father, or even a 'Good Father', is not about being a mother or doing a mother's job, it is about doing what is needed for a child and what is needed by the father and by the mother to have a healthy family unit. Whether a couple works it out explicitly (and keeps communicating and making adjustments!) or implicitly as things develop in a family, figuring out who does what is the central element - not doing the same things in some sort of equal proportion. And of course, then being able to live with the division of responsibility in the eyes of the couple and the reactions of family, friends and community.
60
My father taught me to love beauty more than power, love more than money, grace more than anger. He taught me about Homer, and the Minoans, and Dante at last seeing the stars. He taught me how to decipher the alchemy of a racing form, and how to mix a perfect martini, and how to drive a stick. He taught me the language that the trees speak, when the wind blows just before dawn. He is with his dog now, young and free, chasing at the heels of Orion.
190
@Michael Judge
Thank you, that is stunningly powerful. And though my father was a very different person than your father, I feel exactly the same way about him. But I could never have expressed it as beautifully as you have.
11
@Michael Judge
Thank you. What beautiful prose.
5
Let's be clear: kids take time, energy, effort, financial resources, space. Two parents make the job easier, but no one makes the job easy.
Hooray for dads who schlep the kids around and help out around the house. But hooray for the dads who focus on earning enough to keep them fed and housed, too. Hooray for the dads who vacuum; hooray for the dads who mow the lawn, manage the books, keep the financials clear. And to my own husband - HOORAY for the dad that deals with the nasty details of healthcare and takes care of both cars. I'll run laundry without grousing forever, if you sort out that benefits statement.
For families with children: There is no equity, no parity. There is just the division of duties that works for you best. There is no ideal, no "you can have it all" unless one of you is independently wealthy.
Let's remember to shoot for "you can have enough." Work it out between you who gets which set of vast and unassailable responsibilities and then, let's stop the war of words about who is doing more.
Your goal over a 21 year period to produce an adult who is kind, responsible, happy, productive, educated, healthy and ready to take on life. Why on earth would one figure that there is a perfect formula for parents to share the effort to get to that goal?
290
@Cathy There is immense wisdom in what you say. Parenting takes endless energy. When I see the effort involved I am amazed, at today's young parents and at my younger self too. With all the work involved why spend time reading studies and analyses? Why compare yourself with a statistical mirage? Find a division of labor you can live with and do your best. Billions of people manage to be parents somehow; don't overthink it.
38
@Cathy
Well said!
7
@Cathy
Prefect comment You totally nailed it. I wish I could recommend 5 times. It's hard and there is no right or perfect way. Make the choices that work for you.
15
76 here, 55 years married to same beautiful women, 3 sons, all doing well. The boys will call me tomorrow, wish me a happy father's day, and the talk about how the Bruins blew that last game, and it was all Marchand's fault.
Ross, for a marriage to work, I see two aspects of it. Unconditional love, and then the business side. The love side is easy to explain, you're either in or out. Business side is more complex, who does the dishes, how many incomes are there, food on table, roof over head, job demands, moves, how many kids can we afford, etc.
All said, if you have two with unconditional love, the business end takes care of itself. We were a one income family, so most homemaker chores were by my wife, except for weekends, we then shared.
Today being retired, I do all the cooking, food shopping, vacuum and much of the daily chores. Don't dust, my eyes ain't so good anymore.
That's my take, Happy Fathers Day to all you Dads.
190
@cherrylog754 Lovely post and much like our married life until my husband of 52 years was diagnosed with PD. But he is still a great dad to our now grown daughters and a loving husband. Happy Father’s Day to you and Ross, and all you dads out there.
33
Like some other commenters here, I also question the "data" coming from an expressly rightwing think tank whose purpose is to promote "traditional" family values. I'd LOVE to see a study that doesn't just track self-reported hours of work but also tracks how much men and women are actually accomplishing at home and at work. If we're honest, i'd say, based on both my work and home experiences, women simply get more stuff done in the same amount of hours. There's a lot of evidence, from lot of studies, that women are more productive (in general) at work, so a lot of those "extra hours" men put in at the office aren't actually work hours. Likewise, at home, I know most of my female friends are doing laundry in between (actually while) researching summer camps, making dinner, signing school forms, planning the week's upcoming meals, and making the grocery list. My male friends will cook dinner in the same amount of time and think it's all even. This is not to bash men, but we do need to start with a common set of facts, and I think a lot of the work women actually do is invisible to most men. This is true even for "woke" men, much less people who quote right-wing think tanks dedicated to promoting "traditional" families as the source of their "data".
31
As a single working father of four, I disagree with the author that work outside the home is somehow easier.
I’ll come out and say it- stay-at-home parenting is a luxury.
Work inside the home is “fun” work punctuated by laundry loads.
People who constantly complain about their work inside the home strike me as whining (generally female stay-at-home parent’s).
7
@Mark Shumate I'll give you an A for courage to post your true feelings based on your (I'm assuming) real life experience. We need more authenticity, not worrying about what someone will think about what we are saying bc of the prevailing correct sentiment at any given moment in time.
7
@Mark Shumate Hmmm. In the 90s I was a stay-at-home mom of 3 teenagers. We were a blended family, so everyone hated me and they all detested each other. My husband worked second shift, so I got to do it all. Easier? Not a chance.
10
@Mark Shumate
Just wondering: do the kids live with you or do they live with a single working mother of four most of the time? Maybe a single stay-at-home mother of four who has the "luxury" to do a little laundry between periods of fun?
5
A lot of the changes attributed here to changing cultural expectations have economic roots. The days of the family wage ended almost a half century ago and anxiety about holding a place in the every diminishing middle class pushes today's parents into parenting overdrive- making sure their offspring have the skills to navigate an increasingly steep climb to economic security. The byproducts of these changes are not altogether negative. Men of my father's generation paid a heavy price of being emotionally disconnected from their children. Men of my generation- I'm a septuagenarian- and even more so my sons who are in their thirties have learned that while spending more time with their children is work, there is no greater gift than the unconditional trust that a child gives to a parent who gives them unconditional love.
11
People can still do fine on one income, but most make choices to not do that.
Instead, they want to spend more money than my parents did when my father worked and my mother stayed home, during the 1950s....when both had plenty of time to spend with me and my sister. (thank you mom and dad).
Examples of choices people now make that necessitates two incomes:
Estimates are that each person with a cell phone will spend $75000 over the course of their lifetime on it.
Home size has increased from an average of 983 square feet in the 1950s to over 2600 square feet now.
Cars in the 1950s had a radio---now they have home entertainment systems.
People rarely ate out. Now? Many people spend enormous amounts eating out.
For fun, in the 1950s families went to the park. My wife and I just returned from 2 days at Great Wolf Lodge with our grandsons---money, money, money!
The average family spends about $5000/year on vacations. We spent our vacations driving to see grandma.
People aren't being exploited. It is just as possible to be a one-income family as it once was. Instead, it is peoples' choices--they expect more and spend like it.
My parents were less stressed, were happier, and I think my sister and I were happier partly for that reason. We were given more freedom than children are given now, and I think partly that is because there was, overall, less stress and worry about things feeling out of my parents' control.
17
@Travelers. Surely, some of what you say is true--especially about greater expectations. But there is a tenor of "good old days" that makes that time far more golden than it was. My parents worried and stressed as much as my children do today. Everyone spends more and probably too much money today, but the "simpler" lifestyle is illusory. Culture evolves. There were problems then, there are problems now. Happiness is what any of us makes of life.
5
@Scott
I didn't say my parents weren't stressed. I am not making either/or arguments.
I said "less stressed," and I believe that.
Just take one (small example). My sister and I grew up in one of those 900 square foot houses, with one TV that was on for one hour a day.
How much less stress is it to maintain that kind of house rather than one that is, now, 2 1/2 times as large? Money for the house, for taxes, for utilities, for furniture? Time spent cleaning? Repairing? (one bathroom). That is a LOT of time and a LOT of money. And, importantly, because it was small, we were "together" a lot, instead of children being in their bedrooms on their screens.
Two family incomes are often not needed, if people will make wiser choices about where they spend their money. (and if Republicans would stop passing tax laws that give money to the rich).
Really--nobody needs a cell phone. We have one that has only a telephone and texts. Pay by the minute. We save hundreds of $s a year.
3
No. Most people cannot do fine on one income
4
I haven't had a toddler at home since the '80's and this sounds pretty familiar to me, so it isn't new. Two income family organized around child care that basically made it so that we never saw each other.
But when I think back on that time, I only remember the joy of both the work I was doing and the time with my son. I don't remember the stress, though I'm sure it was there.
These studies of "balance" in work load should also have a "happiness" section. What "works" (in terms of happiness) for one couple doesn't have to work for another.
Couples who "see" the balance as unfair are the ones most stress. The issue is whether the perceived imbalance is because they are using these population studies to gauge "fairness", or whether they navigate according to their internal compass.
6
One thing not mentioned here is who does the bulk of the worrying about the kids. My wife says she has to worry extra because I don't worry enough.
12
People, men and women, work longer hours for less pay now. Corporations own our time; kids get the leftovers.
It’s time for that to change. When it does, you may see a flowering of family life.
29
Both parents have to work longer hours to have an income below what one parent was able to bring home in 1955. That’s the biggest stress on parenting in 2020
44
@Peter
And in 1955, plain old checking accounts with no minimum balance paid over 5% interest. (Actually, they still do, but now that dividend gets paid to the 01% instead of the account holder.)
16
Douthat's opinions are always constructed in a contained universe of "culture" and "values," as though we have a myriad of choices about how to conduct our lives and we choose them based on how we feel about the 60's. Two words explain how we live now, Ross: income inequality. It's not the two-income couple that ups the ante for everyone else, it's the fact that incomes have not grown since the 80's. The economy grows, more money flows to the top, and the rest of us have to figure out how to make it work for our families.
This started with Reagan's tax cuts (and simultaneous union busting), when the powerful finally found a way to start chipping away at the New Deal, and the power and wealth balance started tipping toward the top. Every Republican administration since then (and the R-lite Clinton) has pushed it a little more and now it is at the toppling point. This stress has been deeply felt by families of all incomes below the top, and whether Dad puts in extra hours, or Mom does, is really beside the point. The lower your earning potential, the more extreme the stress on the family. We seem to have accepted this as just the way it is, and individual families find different ways to deal with it - side hustles, longer commutes for a 5% raise, going into debt for better credentials, etc. It's dysfunctional on a societal scale, and yet we go on blaming ourselves and/or our spouses and partners for being inadequately ambitious. We've been conned.
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@HumplePi
Andrew Yang, presidential candidate, offers the answer: Universal basic income
The first I heard of the concept was ironically from the Chicago school of radical libertarians, principally Milton Friedman.
8
Yes, the big difference in watching my children raise their children is the constant surveillance by parents, and in many cases, now grandparents. My childhood in the fifties was my mother telling me to be home by dinner as I ran out the door. Even my children, now in the eighties, were on their bikes to the local library, bakery, and recreational fields of all kinds. But not today...even front lawn play is supervised-it is exhausting.
20
Moms and dads are very different people, doing very different jobs. Please don't confuse these realities.
3
The recent UN report on climate change cites population growth as one of the three crucial factors in preventing climate disaster -- the other two being eating animals and airline travel. Why in the world is Ross suggesting that our population growth it too low?
15
@ASD
Obviously to support the social welfare system in the United States. So fewer young workers are available to pay into the Social Security system with an increasing number of older retirees to be supported. It is forecast that Social Security in the U.S. will need to reduce benefits by 2035 to avoid bankruptcy. This is also a problem in Western Europe and Japan, though I know you Norwegians prefer the the welfare state with less attention to wealth accumulation.
3
@John Kellum This could be achieved through more immigration. The world has plenty of population to sustain economic growth, but it needs to be redistributed. Of course, now we think that's a bad idea because of the color of the skin of potential immigrants, apparently. Although I am hard pressed to understand why the race of the person contributing to the public coffers matters one little bit, I hear that's a big concern among some folks. So we keep hand-wringing about low birth rates, and try to engineer ways to make sure that women are forced to have more children. Strikes me as insane, all of it.
21
While visiting across the continent for my father's 90th birthday, I am staying in a lowbrow hotel that is packed with celebrators of Father's Day. So it hasn't passed away into the nether world everywhere. Also, regarding attention to children -- I have thought about this a lot and I think it also has to do with the rise of meritocracy (as does the two-job phenomenon). Merit and expertise are a life-long project and endeavor, beginning with childhood, when the values of merit must first be instilled. No wonder middle- and upper-middle class parents are so obsessed with child-care, and fearful their children will fall out of the meritocracy and the middle class.
9
I was raised in Brooklyn during the 1950s in a traditional household: my father went to work each morning and my mother remained at home, the traditional "housewife" model.
I understood the agreement they had: he provided the income and she provided the house/child care for me and my two sisters.
But as an enlightened man, I rejected that model when I got married and had children of my own. Yes, my wife at the time gave birth to three boys, and stayed at home with them while I was the "breadwinner," Still, I felt duty-bound to share actively in the household chores and in raising our sons.
Not patting myself on the back here, just stating a mindset.
There is something inherently wrong with women taking on the lion share of child rearing or housework whether or not they are working themselves. When that model changes to one of equal responsibility and equal sharing, women will finally achieve the level of true equality they so richly deserve.
27
I co-create a magazine that comes out every so often. We have a launch each time it appears. Picking a date is always an issue. A lot of factors go into it. One year the only two dates available were Gay Pride Day and Father's Day. Well a huge day of solidarity, celebration and resistance was out. So then what about Father's Day. We could have postponed it for another time. But that would lead into the blistering hot summer. So we would probably have to wait for the fall. A whole set of other problems then. Anyway genius that I am I thought. "Father's Day. Who celebrates Father's Day." I knew holding it on Mother's Day would be a violation so profound we would never recover from even considering it. But Father's Day? A quick phone call maybe? Well it was the worst party we ever had. Most people were either fathers or had fathers or knew other fathers. The party was listless, sparsely attended and we were flooded with apologies. I was startled. Thought it was my duty to pass this along.
5
During my years of managing teams of mostly men in male dominated industries, I found myself often encouraging men to take family leave and once mandated it by directive. Most men sought any opportunity to NOT be home, preferring the lonely taxing life of the road, their expense reports a diary of their avoidance. I once thought these men road warriors and exploited a deep bench. But performance often spoke otherwise and the tools for virtual meetings were ignored. I finally surmised, they didn't want to be home with rightfully needy dependents, so the independence of a healthy per diem and unlimited travel, unencumbered adult interaction, was more appealing than daily fatherhood and community engagement. This unpaid work is absorbed by women, still.
I have not a single friend or lover who didn't or doesn't still have a complicated, if not broken, relationship with their dad. As it appears of Mr. don't Do That, I know a lot of "show and tell" or Disney dads, around for the good times and easy work like going to a store or soccer game, but none of the in-the- trenches battle of daily parenting. Perhaps its my generation but the social construct of fatherhood seems broken. Rather than feel sorry for men, I feel sorry for the abandoned women and children subsidizing the non-performance of "dads", sacrificing their own independence and economic autonomy.
In our broken young men, isn't the evidence of poor fathering all around us or is Mr. Don't Do That avoiding that too?
22
I wonder if fathers know how important they are. A man engages w his children so differently. When a woman chooses to have a child, it too is for dad because he is the one you chose for the father. Looking back on my parents marriage, I wanted my family to be less about roles and more about making a home. That required the investment of us and our particular strengths. In the end, the marriage changed us. I see it in the marriages of my daughter and her friends. I think we know how to take care of each other, but somehow we don't. It becomes all about the job.
5
Historically, fathers' jobs were the only job and typically paid more. Hence the arduous, longer commute was deemed a necessary sacrifice.
Mothers' jobs were considered supplementary and needed to be balanced against the demands of childrearing.
My father's commute was more than an hour long during rush hour on a major highway. My brother's commute is more than an hour long by car and train. My mother gave up her long commute and found a job she preferred only ten minutes away. So, too, with my sister-in-law. When her office relocated from Maryland to Virginia, she began telecommuting and occasionally drives in for meetings (non-rush hour).
This paradigm is changing as more women assume greater financial responsibility and more men become stay-at-home fathers or supplementary earners. Today, women fly all over the world as part of their jobs.
2
There are a lot of wonderful stories about the good old days here. The good old days for me, in the 60s, Mom at home and Dad working. Dad came home and drank. Mom took pills to deal with a drunk husband, her economic dependence on a man that drank and raising children whose existence trapped her in a marriage with a man that was either at work or drunk. There have always been good parents and bad parents. The best parents and partners work as a team and don't keep score. Many of my friends had parents like that. I hope they are becoming more common today now that roles are not as ridgid.
50
I think the male edge in "work" time might even increase if it adjusted to include time spent commuting to the paying job. Often the commute is more stressful and taxing than the job itself, and Dad's commutes tend (I say tend) to be longer as Mom's jobs tend (again) to be closer to home.
2
@Larry Covey
You do not have to hedge. You are correct.
Articles like this one defending a father's value, or the many others advocating for the mother miss the much larger issue: it's now much more difficult and risky to create and maintain a family. Pitting mothers against fathers misses the bigger picture, that we're all being taken advantage of by a minority with great wealth and power. We're bickering over how to slice an ever diminishing pie, while ignoring rising inequality that causes the pie to constantly shrink.
322
@Michael Sander. Ya got that straight!
9
I noticed two things reading the article that was referenced. 1. The number of hours reported by both men and women jumped quite a bit between 2011 and 2016 from 54 to 61 hrs per week for men and 53 to 57 for women, a trajectory that is concerning. 2. The study is based on self reported work hours. Without other validation, how do we know how much time is actually spent working? Or how much work is being done in that time?
33
Thank you Ross.
Please keep writing about gender issues.
This column is a nice break from the usual Times avalanche of articles about what is wrong with men in general and fathers in particular. Articles that, as you note, all too often portray women as getting the short end of the stick, when women actually work less total hours than the men they complain about. It’s no shock that these articles are usually written by women, interview only women, and so their conclusions tend to be biased... toward women.
Men need the support of actual honest thinking and writing about gender that doesn’t demonize men ab initio. And women need a bit of a reality check.
Happy father’s day!
35
Honestly, I think dads DO have it all already. Stop mansplaining it all to us, Ross. Male prestige is still greater than female prestige, even for the same work (exception: "Oh, a lady doctor? How great." No, I don't hear that anymore, but I used to.And I guarantee you that male doctors do not get called "Mister" but I get called "Miss" all too often. But I digress.)
Male incomes tend to be higher than female's for the same exact work, which please don't tell me you forgot. So if men are working harder/more hours outside the home, well, that's because they probably (a) have to and (b) can and (c) it's worth it for their families.
Please don't complain. You have it very, very good. If your neighborhood isn't safe enough for your kids to play outside alone it, well, I'm pretty sure it isn't women who are making that way.
(I am not a wild feminist. Just a feminist, married and with an adult child. I am, however, aware of how hard it is to be a working mother. That's all I have ever been, for 25 years.)
292
@Ellen Tabor
If you describe prestige in primarily economic terms, you begin to sound more like a materialist. What a sad place on which to anchor one’s value.
My mother was ground zero in our family, despite the fact she never held a paying job nor attended college. She demanded, and received, everyone’s respect. And there was never a question as to the influence she wielded over our nuclear patriarchy.
Perhaps as women become atomized, economic beings, as they are encouraged to do, they will realize that men could never play the equity argument against men who bested them in life. And it is hard when all you are left to reckon with is your own failings. So I relish that day.
Bearing children is hard, as is the greater emotional burden that mothers bear for their offsprings’ well-being. Perhaps on the way to overthrowing this awful patriarchy where men are expected to bear physical burdens at ridiculously disproportionate rates from women, you will turn some of your anger at evolution.
And, increasingly, in a deterministic world, men never really owe women a thing other than help with food (as the lion pack teaches) or self-gratification (as our primate ancestors demonstrate impeccably).
Perhaps our co-dependency is too nuanced for those of us fixated on personal power. And perhaps all the women CEOs someday will lament that they reached a pinnacle of a society fraught with dysfunction, impeding their ability to make a pile of money.
Will we blame that, also, on men?
24
@Ellen Tabor
Sorry Ellen. You seem more interested in complaining than appreciating those around you including men.
20
@Ellen Tabor
Prestige & income? How dreary.
12
I have been happily married for 47 years, and I am sure my wife is equally happy. My (not so humble opinion) is that traditionally women's work, although hard physically, isn't mentally taxing. Men has to worry about big things in life, and we are not good at expressing our emotions. Hence too much stress. That's the reason life expectancy of men is lower than women's in the USA.
On this Father's Day let us drink one for men who suffer silently.
7
Sorry, I don’t know any men that suffer silently. Most who claim to suffer in silence seem to whine quite loudly. As a full-time working mother, and finally an executive, I managed a group of 60 men, picked up my kids after school, and was still asked what’s for dinner when I got home. Actually, suffering in silence might be a very good idea so please keep up the silence. Or have another martini while you’re waiting for someone to cook you dinner. And sorry about all that stress you’ve suffering. Very brave of you.
272
@Jack
I think the top of my head just blew off!
I've been married for 55 years and my husband and I are still struggling with division of labor and the value of what each of us does. From my perspective, which is biased of course, he thinks whatever he does is harder and more valuable than anything I do. That's natural because it's really hard for someone to get inside the experience of others.
On this Father's Day, I thank him for being a good father to our three children, but underneath that thanks is a strong visceral feeling that he couldn't have done it without my help. Maybe that's the reality of parenting.
33
@Jack What a guy! You are certain that your wife is as happy as you are after 47 years because you shouldered the burden of all that mental work and worry about the big things. All she had to do was the donkey work. At least you realize that you aren't humble. Do you also realize that you don't have a clue?
22
Taking care of children is pleasurable, and should not be considered work. I never thought it so when our five were small.
The baby in that picture should be crawling on the floor, perhaps making a mess of those piles of clean laundry. And sorting and folding laundry is definitely a waste of time: just stuff it in a drawer any-which-way. Perhaps in a pile in the corner.
16
@Jonathan Katz is your first paragraph supposed to be funny?
7
@Jonathan Katz I have no idea what sort of children you have to be able to claim that childcare is always pleasurable, but they truly must be perfect "little angels" of a kind few ordinary human parents are blessed with...
6
Tax the Koch Brothers: save the family!
The underlying problem with Ross's argument here, as elsewhere, is that his desire to blame the now non-existent hippies for all the problems we face gets in the way of seeing the real problem, which lies with his own corporate pay masters.
It is economically too expensive to have children. Many, though clearly not all, of us, are stressed out of our minds. BOTH parents "work" too much outside of home and that makes childcare draining. Increasingly, our children are saying "no thanks."
Economics are the driver. Capital demands too much of our labor. The Koch brothers are not the solution; they are the problem.
Based on steeply progressive taxation, pay every person or couple with a pre-school age child 25 K per year. Some will stay home; some will avail themselves of childcare. The birthrate will go up!
Stop blaming the 1960s left for the country's problems. Sheesh.
83
Actually I disagree with Douthat on a great deal but I think he's a social conservative who is for that kind of spending to help families and to encourage them to have more children.
1
In his attempt to flex his erudition in shared child rearing, Mr. D has failed to recogize the characteristic most obvious and most determinative of how mon and dad parent: how mom and dad themselves were raised.
While these characteristics are difficult to quantify and measure, we at least know they are highly variable. The only thing different today about Tolstoy's opening of Anna Karenina is that all happy families are slightly less the same than they were in the 19th century; as for the unhappy ones, they are more unilke than ever.
9
I don't really understand the thinking here.
I didn't get married and have kids until later in life. I was ready for it. I wanted kids.
My kids are the greatest. The best things I do for me are with my kids. This isn't "work." It hasn't been since I discovered with real delight that my daughter could talk to me, and made sense. She was about three. We've been talking about whatever, ever since.
When I go to the store, one or more comes with me. That's fun.
When I go wait for a car repair, one or more goes with me, and we have fun.
When we make dinner, my kids learn cooking, and now do a lot of it. That's fun. Cooking is a major life pleasure too, because good food is a major life pleasure.
Work? Counting the hours? My wife gets a bit jealous of the time my kids spend with me, so we go off alone for dates too.
Wheeling his brood through the mall and looking unhappy? There's something wrong with that.
151
@Mark Thomason I am happy for you that your years raising children were so stress-free. In my own childhood, there was constant stress due to the limited financial resources available. We were a family on 8, on a teacher's salary - ONE teacher's salary, so my Mom could stay home and raise us. The stress was constant, even though my Mom tried mightily to protect us from the financial problems. Maybe it's the reason why only 2 of us had kids, and there are only 5 grandkids out of a family of 6 siblings. Having kids just didn't look like very much fun.
26
@Mark Thomason, agreed. For someone who pushes the joys of famblee as much as Douthat does, shouldn’t a day out with the kids be happy-making?
9
@Mark Thomason. I’m a mom, not a dad so probably should “lean out” here. But your comment speaks to me because, like you, I usually enjoyed being with my three kids. They’re grown now, and the oldest just had a baby!! Can’t wait to have conversations with this new little one, all while cooking, grocery shopping, and doing errands.
I realize that some might think I’m patting myself on the back or clueless to the crushing strain of financial insecurity—a relentless stress that strips the joy from many situations. Surely it’s hard to view getting the car serviced as some fun field trip with junior when you can’t figure out how to pay for the new tires. I get that.
But fact is that many people—regardless of income—view child care as a burden. I always viewed it as a privilege instead—an opportunity to teach them things and hear their little-people ideas. Kids are amazing!
6
There is another reason for dual-earner couples besides desire (or necessity) for higher income. In our days, many marriages don't last long and women may tremendously benefit from acquiring/maintaining their professional skills (and resumes) if they keep working while being married and don't have to rely exclusively on alimony after divorce.
81
Not to mention that many women are lucky to get child support, let alone alimony!
3
Mr. Douthat fails to mention that many women prefer careers. These mothers are not interested in staying home full time. Many couples work out joint home management so the wife can work outside the home.
54
Once again, I fail to fathom what Douthat's point is. I loved being a dad, participated in everything as much as I could, and never regretted anything. There were times when one of us had more work or had to travel for weeks at a time, so we shared the work. Every couple establishes their own balance (or lack thereof).
43
The fact that your position relies on a position paper written for the Institute of Family Studies which is an ultra conservative think tank dedicated to the support of traditional families and tied to the Koch brothers should be the lead instead of buried in the middle of a middling paragraph. Your/their Good Dad presupposes a family structure that few participate in any more even if they can afford it. Like most roles in human relationships, good dads just like good moms have to make different choices depending on their circumstances. Father's Day, admittedly a Hallmark holiday, is an opportunity nonetheless to celebrate all the ways men who are fathers do the right thing for and with their children.
194
Absolutely. Arguing that we must preserve the system that allows single breadwinner families to exist completely ignores the fact that only wealthy people were ever able to benefit from that system in the first place. It's not that an option we all used to have disappeared. It's that now wealthy families have to contend with some of the same forces as poor ones, and that's progress in my book.
9
Mankind has gotten to where it is because the division of labor in child rearing allowed for continued survival. Plain and simple
Men and women are, in fact very, different animals. Genetics rule animals behavior and the best we can do is manage the periphery. The vast majority of mammalians divide the rearing of offspring in a similar fashion.
Does that mean that men can't rear children or clean house? Or women can't "bring home the bacon"? Of course not. As I said we can manage the periphery. This is where choice comes into play. The catch is too many allow stereotypes, and the resulting prejudices, to come into play.
3
@Mark -- If we go all evolution on this, then men took both sons and daughters with them to teach them hunting and fishing.
Daniel Boone's last hunt was with a young grandson, for the specific purpose of teaching him.
This is universal. The instructor in a hunter safety course once told us that there are stages in a hunter's life. The greatest satisfaction in the last stage is teaching someone you care about to do the hunt.
That includes how to clean and cook the food you get as you go. It includes how to get some of it home.
Daughters can be great hunters. They are fun to teach, too. It isn't all boys to men. It is parent to child, uncle to nephew, grandfather and grandson. See Robert Ruark's hunting classic, the Old Man and the Boy (1957), about his boyhood hunts with his grandfather.
And yes, boys must cook. You suffer in camp if they can't. My son is making our dinner right now, and it will be very good, I'm sure.
23
@Mark
Please tell me where what specific gene it is on my second X chromosome that makes me particularly suited to cleaning a toilet.
Or is there a special gene on the Y chromosome that renders men disabled when it comes to cleaning and changing diapers?
Thanks in advance.
4
As a a man who has managed both men and women, women generally do more work at work. Men spend a lot of time socializing. Work, for men, is a way to escape the work their wives are doing. It's not much different from golf.
214
Regardless of the division of housework and child rearing among couples, the most important thing is that parents be emotionally open and available to their offspring. Those of us who grew up in homes where this dynamic did not exist find it more difficult to forge successful bonds with our partners/spouses and our children today.
40
@J. Grant, Hopefully these adult pundits will ask "Can children have it all" after resolving the shouting match "Can Dads Have It All?" vs. "Can Women Have It All?", although, IMHO, they should be disqualified from talking about children.
Its interesting that on the hand, we condemn the fact that we need two working parents to enable a reasonable lifestyle in todays run-away capitalist society and then, at the same time forget that the same system allowed women to enter and succeed in the workplace. Do we really want to go back to the when one income was adequate and most women stayed at home?
12
@Sipa111 How about if both partners worked half time? What if our jobs only took 20-25 hours instead of 40-50 each week? Why not? Think of the benefits: less commuting, more time to spend doing hobbies and volunteering, cleaner homes perhaps, more time spent with the children and the grandparents, a confluence of the different generations. No longer overworked. Engaged with community or just engaged with one's own inner life. Count me in.
122
The 40-hour workweek is an artificial creation with no basis in fact other than as a sop to early twentieth century communism and the desire to force businesses to hire the unemployed of the Great Depression. Even fewer hours cannot be justified.
2
@From Where I Sit Sounds like you're angry you can't make people work unlimited hours. The nerve of those labor unions, demanding weekends off!
3
Things have changed since I was a kid. Most families emulated the Cleaver’s: dad worked, mom kept house, while wearing earrings and high-heels. Generally, the middle-class could get by on one income. Both parents didn’t have to work outside the home to afford a house, send kids to school, buy a car and put food on the table.
Neither was there a sense of impending danger that, unlike today, considers it a crime for a child to be outside alone.
When I was growing up in the ‘50s, my parents both worked, dad at a factory and my mom part-time as an R.N. We played outside, roamed our semi-rural neighborhood, fearlessly explored a nearby wood and set off what were surely near-lethal fireworks. But there was no sense of “stranger danger” like there is today.
The family and income dynamic has changed since then. Two-income families are almost a requirement now. Technology has come with high price tags and perpetual fees. There’s a palpable sense of stratification in the workplace, with C.E.O.s making hundreds of times the rate of ordinary worker.
If fertility is down, it’s because the work dynamic has changed. Women and men compete for the same jobs. Childrearing and educational expectations are more stringent and expensive. Technology has made the home base less necessary. Ironically, social media has incited anti-social behavior. The Church is the last place you’d want your child to be left alone.
Aren’t things supposed to be getting better?
222
@gemli: I am 89, and was one of the parents of your generation. I am glad that I was young back then. If I were young now, I think that my first ambition would be to arrange a vasectomy.
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@Penseur
I am 76 and even then, in the '70s, I had real doubts about bringing children into this world. I have two but worry for their and their children's future.
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@gemli
"The Church is the last place you’d want your child to be left alone." -- Great line; it says a lot.
29
"the way that dual-earner couples establish a norm that forces everybody to work harder to keep up"
You'd think that when the richest country on earth's families cut down on the number of children drastically and converted to dual earner status, the extra earnings would pay for the help needed to make up for Mom not being home during the day.
Somehow, our nations vastly increasing wealth hasn't been distributed throughout our system in a way to make this possible.
If this country's wealth was distributed more equitably, middle class Americans would be able to enjoy not only the increasing luxuries of our modern lives, but also enough leisure not to be so stressed by buying more help.
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There are also all those Dads who, under one circumstance or another, do not live with the mother of their children and for whom division of work is a completely different reality from the shared household model.
In all cases, what matters the most is being a good parent. Love your kids, be there for them, be involved positively in their lives.
Happy Father’s Day, everyone.
25
@NM
Sadly, the most equitable families I know are those that are divorced with the kids spending 50% with each parent. It does requires flexibility at work - these parents all work much more when they aren't on "kid duty" but they are by far the parents with the most balanced lives.
21
@NM: Too true. Especially in NYS where the courts consistently decide that children of divorced/separated parents should have the same standards of living in both "households" even while paying full-throated acknowledgment to the fact that both parents work, in most cases. But if only one works, and it's the dad, the courts would rather bankrupt the loving father. This needs sudden and dramatic change.
And thank you! Happy father's day to you too! My daughter just told me she's proud and happy that I'm her dad (with all the warts)!
1
Within a strong relationship, the two individuals that communicate to one another and are honest, are the ones that are going to figure out what is best for their situation. (that also might be in constant flux)
That is to say that on any given day, that one or the other is going to having more or less ''work'' depending on circumstances, and generally all know how much they are putting in. If the balances start getting a little one sided, then there can be communication so one does not feel overly burdened.
You would think that you would WANT to help out the other as much as possible, because essentially to love someone is to give. Aye ?
It also helps if the state (I know, that darn Socialism again) tightens up the slack so the couple are not overwhelmed with costs, so they do not HAVE to work obscene hours to make everything run. If the parents have more time, they have more energy, they have more patience = The children thrive.
Pretty basic stuff.
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@FunkyIrishman
"You would think that you would WANT to help out the other as much as possible, because essentially to love someone is to give. Aye ? "
Aye.
And a more human, family, child friendly society would be a gift to all.
3