Navigating Fatherhood in a Modern Age

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

You'd be wrong if you thought the world hasn't changed in the last 40 years. In fact, the world has changed so radically that what was just forty years ago is long lost today.

What do I mean?

Well, our culture, our societies, even the way that we interact with one another has been whittled down to a mouse click or a zoom call away.

If you are a bit of a history buff like I am then you'll know that the last hundred years have brought such advancements to humankind that if you were transported from the 1950's to today they'd assume we were on some sort of alien world. We've taken off in a technological vertical line ever since we began working on advancements like antibiotics and penicillin.

As a 40 year old myself, the worldly knowledge that our fathers and our grandfathers passed onto us are no more. If we led the lives our parents did then we'd probably be cast asunder as sexists and homophobes, or whatever ist and phobe is relevant in the hour.

In all honesty, our generation has had to sort of "wing" it so to speak. If you look back to the 1800's you would see fathers passing on trades and knowledge to sons and very rarely would someone step afield from the parents, because there were no such thing as public schools and universities - those were reserved for people with lots of money.

Now there's a whole barrage of options to choose from with whatever your heart may take you. From psychology to nuclear physics. If you have the aptitude to go for it then you can, even if it's wildly against your family's trade, and they'll probably applaud you for doing it.

So we winged it.

And we've had to adapt fast with the change now that women have been relieved of their biological slavery. Sounds harsh that, doesn't it? Yes. Pre-1900's being a woman meant that you'd marry and spend your life being pregnant until you die.

Not now though. The women's revolution began when they fought for their freedom back in the sixties. Most of you will know that as, "The burning of Bras" but the truth is a little deeper than that, there were already large organised women institutions that were working hard to elevate the choices of their female compatriots who more than likely played a significant role in the changing of society.

It all started with Birth Control. Women were free from their biological oppression. No longer did they have to take risks every time they laid down with a man, no longer were they forced into pregnancy, and having a child had for the first time ever in human history, became a choice. Birth control now managed this and it was set to change society forever.

That's why we call the 60's and the 70's the era of free love. Why sex had become transactional instead of something between two loving couples. Anyone who can remember John Lennon and the Beatles and how much sex those guys had weekly can probably attest to the free loving nature of that era.

Thus brought with it some significant changes which we see play out today. 50 years later, the children from the adults of that era are now seeing a significant impact to their lives. Physically, the human bonding process has been changed at warp speed.

In 2023 Birth Control has become so good that having a child is completely and utterly a choice. There are so many options now for women, and we are so technologically advanced that if a lady wants to have a child then she can do so without a man present. Psychologically and Biologically we are still the same as we were 1000 years ago, though. Which means women would feel the same shame if they went wild with sex, go through the "baby blues" in their thirties, and yearn for some kind of routine in the form of gender roles in the household.

Gender roles are a funny thing. We see people scream from the hilltops about smashing the Patriarchy and that gender roles are an archaic past time made by crazy old people that have no bearing on society, but the reality is far more nuanced. Whilst in one family the women might go out to work as Dad stays in to help with the kid - this is still a make-up of gender roles.

At base we need to know where we fit in when it comes to the family household whether it's helping baby with bum changes, or out at work earning for the family. It takes many different people to make the world go round.

So what about men? Oh yeah, men, heh. So what?

Well, men have had to adapt. Nothing has changed for us. We are still physically and psychologically the same, and we still want today what we wanted 1000 years ago. Nothing has changed at all. We're still duty-bound to do many of the same things that our forefathers did but on an extremely fast paced and ever-changing landscape.

If us men were lucky enough to have smart adults around us then they'd have guided us appropriately. One of the last things my nearly-step dad said to me before I never saw him again was to get into computers, because that's where the world is going. I'm now paying that forward and getting my son into coding, and later AI. It's the future. It will change the world again like Steve Jobs did with his iPhone.

It's like what the father of evolution said -- it's not the strong that survive, but those most adept to change. We see that play out today. Those that take change in their stride are able to keep playing the high-stakes game of life whilst those that can't are left behind feeling that the world is set up against them.

The game has changed. If you're a father now then I guess you were born anywhere between the early 2000's and before. A time when we grew up watching Dad go out and do the majority of the earning whilst mum would stay at home and help out. It wasn't always the case though, on school holidays I would be sent off to the YMCA with all the other kids who's parents worked at the time -- and there were a lot of them!

But this is now changing radically - I can remember taking my kid to school alongside big burly men holding their daughters pink fluffy scooter and helping her with her pom poms, something you would never see when I was young for sure!

The male role is changing, and as women are more and more going into (and back to) the work force fathers are becoming more and more involved in their kids lives. It's not a wildly uncommon thing to see a stay at home dad now, and dads milking their newborn's in the park - something I've saw quite often on my travels, which would have been a gross affliction against maledom back when I was a child.

It is a good thing. I have a better relationship with my son now than I would ever have had were I living in the 1980's or beforehand. I'm more involved in his development than any of my parents ever were. It's a common thing for dad to be around and be present. Of course I AM aware that my childhood was quite different from many.

One thing that DID happen though is that it has become far more acceptable for me to take Alex out in the pram when he was younger, or do anything that was typically deemed as "women's work." One of our family friends is a single dad, and we look at him proudly, doing the right thing for his kids, whereas perhaps in the 80's we would have laughed at him constantly and told him he was a big girl.

The 80's was like an afterthought to old Victorian norms, where mum would brood over her children, and dad would overlook the household with a stiff upper lip casting a disapproving gaze when any of the boy-children did anything remotely feminine. I remember my Grandad always getting mad at my Gran when he thought she was turning me into a softie. Occasionally Gran would let me play with mum's old clothes washer. I loved it -- such an ancient toy, but so soothing to play with I would think to myself. Grandad thought they were turning me into a girl.

We often forget that we only had the most violent war mankind had ever seen 80 years ago. Men had to be tough to live through that. Tougher than tough. If you weren't tough as nails and violently trained then you would end up dead. That was our Grandads generation. Thankfully that is only a distant memory now as men begin to relax and adopt a more sincere and involved position in the household. My generation has seen a lot of change, I'm thankful for being able to hug my son like I mean it without being judged for it.

I can only thank women going out into the workforce in their droves for that. The fact that we now share (or divide up) the household duties is somewhat of a blessing more than it is a curse. I get a lot of pleasure from being able to watch my son grow, and to play a significant part in his growth and development, rather than something I have to watch from afar as I bust out 60 hours of weekly work.

It seems good, this slow change in living. We're far more aware of mental health, and people are far more relaxed about dads with their kids than they have ever been. We tend to talk about things now way more.

And that's a good thing.

Posted from my blog here: https://learnisart.com/navigating-fatherhood-in-a-modern-age/