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The guys who fear becoming fathers don't understand that fathering is not something perfect men do,

but something that perfects the man.  The end product of child raising is not the child but the parent.  ~Frank Pittman, Man Enough

Fathering - a lost art?

Manhood and fathering have been left out of the frame for some time.  While women have been encouraged to participate fully in the workforce there has been no reciprocal encouragement of men into full time parenting.  This constant promotion of the workplace as a high value, high esteem environment has reduced parenting to hobby status.  No one has been promoting parenting as a vocation to feel good about - why try to exceed at something that is considered of little value?  We see men who would never consider parent education baulk at the possiblity of missing rugby practice.  Why does rugby have higher value than parenting?

In his enlightening book book 'Manhood', Steve Biddulph raises an interesting hypothesis.  He claims that just seven generations ago we were pre- industrial revolution.  At that time communities were largely agricultural, meaning children were raised by whole villages.  With the industrial revolution men were taken out of childrens' lives for most of the time.  For boys this has created an inter-generational impact.  While girls maintained ongoing access to role models the path from boyhood to manhood has been disrupted.  Seven generations ago, boys had fathers, uncles, grandfathers and family friends constantly around both to care for them and to teach them the values and attributes of being a 'good man'.  Now many boys have only the briefest weekly contact with men and sometimes those men are themselves struggling with the role of man. 

Lacking real role models how many boys are learning to be men through cartoon-like characters they see on television and movies?  Instead of learning to be 'strong', boys are learning to be aggressive.  In intellectual circles masculine characteristics are becoming objects of ridicule, making it difficult for boys to define themselves.  Where fortitude used to be seen as a positive masculine value, now it might now be seen as an inability to communicate, a failing rather than a strength.  Men are being pushed out of manhood, and for both the safety and success of society they need to reclaim manhood

If we want our boys to grow to be strong, safe men of high character we must reconnect that path between boyhood an manhood.  Simply put -boys need to be given more access to more men.  This is a challenge that government, business, and communities must come together to succeed in.  The social and economic benefits of having more well adjusted men would be enormous.  The only ones to suffer would be our newsreaders, who would miss the countless stories of rape, domestic violence, home invasions and other misery that comes from men who have not connected properly with manhood.