What kind of parent will I be? It’s a question that most of us ask long before we have children. We spend years watching our own parents, thinking about what we’ll do similarly and differently, and absorbing lessons from friends, family, books, movies, slowly forming ideas about the kind of mother or father we hope to become.
There is no shortage of advice about parenting. And in recent years, fatherhood in particular has become a flashpoint in broader debates about masculinity, authority, family, and the roles men should play in raising children. Alex Berenson, an author, former New York Times reporter, and father of three, says many of the prevailing ideas about fatherhood are at best misguided, and at worst entirely backward. In his short new book, The Fatherhood Manifesto, he offers 50 of his own tips for today’s dads.
This Father’s Day weekend, we’re delighted to publish five of them, along with Berenson’s reflections on how men can be better fathers—and why it matters that they try. —The Editors
Fatherhood is underrated.
Much of the media enjoys portraying fathers as clueless, or worse. I’m not sure what underlying bias drives this impulse, but the stereotyping starts practically at birth. I remember reading the Berenstain Bears series with my kids. In every book, hardworking, practical Mama ran the house. She cooked, cleaned, took care of the cubs. Potbellied, entitled, dopey Papa got in the way.
I was surprised at how unsubtle the message was. I shouldn’t have been. The old idea that “father knows best” is long gone. For decades, if not generations, the media has stereotyped fathers as goofy, hapless fools who depend on their superhero wives to pay the bills and take care of their kids.
Meanwhile, feminist academics crank out research claiming fathers coast in married households where both parents work. None of those papers looks like the reality in the middle- and upper-middle-class suburban and urban families I know best. In those two-parent homes, child care is split mostly equally. Sometimes, when fathers are the primary wage earners, they get a slight break. But the same split occurs in reverse when the women of the house make more.
Of course, our cultural elites offer a second stereotype of fatherhood: the emotionally distant blue-collar dad who hardly notices his daughters, and whose interest in his sons begins and ends with their ability to put a perfect spiral into double coverage. If the white-collar father is a fool who tries but fails to share parenting, his blue-collar counterpart ignores the job entirely.
Throughout academia, Hollywood, and the media, the only good dad is a feminized “gentle parent” who never raises his voice, is always ready with a hug, and never lets his kid take a risk or get hurt. In other words, the only good dad is a mom.
These lies—and they are lies—have real consequences. They discourage men from being fathers. And they discourage fathers from being the kind of fathers they want to, can, and should be.
