How Fatherhood Has Changed Over the Years
Fatherhood has dramatically changed since I have been a dad in the last 21 years, but wow! How it’s changed in the 50 years.
When I was growing up, there is no doubt that the master of the household was Dad. I guess it’s down to the fact that he in essence was the breadwinner, king of of his castle and this gave him, I believe the misconception that his word was law. Society of that time though accepted this as normal behaviour, but the world was going to change. No longer was mum going to be able to shout at the kids when your father gets home he is going to sort you lot out. Funnily only until I was about 8 years old would this have had any effect because that was about the time my father left.
I often hear the following terms used, the modern man or the new age dad, but what does that mean? Have men become the new mum’s of today? Of course not, at least I don’t think so. Men have simply evolved.
The caveman dad has more or less gone. I wouldn’t say completely because there will always be the neanderthal dad that believes women should be subservient and children should only be seen and definitely not heard. That I believe is most likely always going to exist to a certain level, but thankfully it’s diminishing.
The positives of fatherhood today are there to be seen everywhere. Men are finally allowed to show their emotions and wear their heart on their sleeve without being ridiculed by society.
Fatherhood nowadays also has so many different formats which are not from yesterday and we have as fathers moved into what was a mum dominated area.
1. The stay at home dad (sahd)
In our more accepting society today many men are taking on the role of the main carer of children and it’s brilliant to watch because why shouldn’t we? I can’t think of any reason why we wouldn’t do as a good a job as a mum. Of course there are many reasons for this. It could be finincial or the mum in the relationship has decided she wants to carry on a career that she has worked hard to achieve and actually I couldn’t think of a better role model especially to daughters that mums’ can do anything they want and be very successful in the workplace. Also having dad at home can give children a different perspective on life, seeing it from a male point of view and of course dads can run the household, which is something I do on a part-time basis as my wife and I share the workload as we both also work.
2. Gay dads
Over recent years there has been a massive rise in men who are gay becoming dads. This is usually in the form of adoption and why not? We live in a world where whatever your preference you should not be excluded from fatherhood and I personally think there is nothing wrong with having two loving dads bringing up their children. In fact I’m in awe of gay dads because I’m sure they have to put up with an element of judgement from narrow minded bigots. I’m not sure how I would deal with that.
3. Single dads
Today there is a large number of single dads, and for numerous reasons, it could be that sadly they have been widowed. It could also be for a variety of reasons, though divorce that they have been granted full custody of their children. Which today is very common place. I take my hat off to these guys because it can’t be easy being mum and dad to your children. A very tough job to say the least.
4. Working dads
The majority of dads are still working and probably bring in the lions share of money to the home, but that doesn’t mean that this dad is the stereotypical dad of the past. Far from it.
The change has been in how working dads priorities have changed. Listening to and reading about working dads today, one of their main priorities is family time and doing things as a family such as having family days out. Long gone are the days of working 24/7, although I imagine there still are many dads that do that, but a lot of working dads see family as equally important in their lives. I work, but I do my best to have weekends as family time otherwise I feel my twin girls could easily grow up not knowing me if I worked all the hours god sends.
I’m not saying that years ago these different types of dads didn’t exist, because obviously they did, but today it’s more common place and that is an incredible evolution of fatherhood, and how far as men and dads we have come.
Dads of 2017 are a new breed of men who actually have no problem showing emotion, whether that is crying or just being sad. It’s showing our children a life lesson that was never shown before, being human with all its imperfections and not being afraid of showing our emotions for all to see.
Dads of 2017 are hands on with their children from the moment they are born, changing nappies, feeding, whatever it takes to be a parent, dads are there now.
The example that the majority of dads are showing to their children is one of when you become a parent if you are a mum or dad the responsibility of that child is as much dads as it is mums’. Being part of the dads of today is actually the best feeling in the world because I think we are rocking fatherhood.
Would love to know your thoughts.
1 Comments
Widower After AFE
April 15, 2017 at 1:31 pm
Hi Nigel,
I’ve become a recent follower and it’s great to see a fellow dad stepping up. We need more to do the same.
In respect of the above, I guess some of my own personal observations are a little different. As a widower of 4 years, an only parent to 2 kids for 4 years and a dad for 7 years I don’t see any significant shift in the status quo. Yes, more men are becoming SAHD but the school run, parent/teacher meetings, kids parties
etc that I see, would suggest that things haven’t changed much really. In the past 7 years I have seen little to no increase in dads doing the drop off/pick up, taking their kids to parties, attending parent/teacher meetings etc. I still see mums (working or otherwise) doing the large majority of the child care & running around after their kids.
I think culturally we’re still locked into traditional roles and have a real difficulty in changing things. We’re not talking about rocket science here by any stretch of the imagination. If society truly wanted to make the changes that you and I as dads are doing for our own children, then it wouldn’t take a significant amount of effort for the powers that be, employers and families to do it. It’s about mind set and I firmly believe that the general concensus of opinion is for things to remain as they are and that men largely and some women do not want to see a change in traditional roles, despite all the rhetoric that we hear about. I get a lot of direct/indirect comments about me being a dad and so I’m not as capable as a woman to raise 2 young children. Ignoring the fact that there are some terrible mums in our society just as there are some terrible dads. So I believe that it’s not about gender but about individuals taking resposibility and there being a significant shift in the images portrayed in the media and at large.
In respect of emotions I think there is still a big issue with men being expected to be strong and tough and so that means that they shouldn’t show emotions. When they do, it’s deemed as a sign of weakness and in some cases there are those that will try to take advantage of that. When my wife died I had some terrible things said to me by both men & women because I showed my emotions. I still get direct/indirect comments now because I’m not afraid of showing my emotions. I want my boys to grow up feeling that it’s okay for them to do so and so I won’t change how I am.
As a society we need to take responsiblity, do more and not just pay lip service to what is a pressing issue for our children. As it stands, if there isn’t a significant change in mindset I really don’t see how things will change much for the future. By the time the current set of young children reach adulthood and become parents themselves, the large majority of role models that they will have had will still be based on the status quo way of doing things.