S A GUY, IT’S
hard not to feel
defensive these
days. More and
more, American
men are getting
the message
that they’re dis-
pensable. Two
years ago, for the first time, women
held more than half of American jobs,
and the recession proved especially
harsh for fields dominated by men,
such as manufacturing and high fi-
nance. One new book calls women
“The Richer Sex”; another proclaims
“The End of Men.”
Things are shaky on the home front,
too. Single motherhood has become
increasingly common; more than
half of ;U.S. births to women younger
than 30 occur outside marriage. A
well-publicized report in the Journal
of ;Marriage and Family in 2010 even
suggested that a child with two moms
gets better parenting, on average, than
a child with a mom and a dad. It can
leave a father wondering: What is my
role? Am I obsolete?
A
world. More often than not, when
they call home, they talk to their
mother. That’s natural, I suppose,
since my wife’s flexible schedule as
a freelance writer allowed her to be
more involved with their daily lives
as they grew up. I don’t want to make
them repeat what they’ve told her, so I
settle for secondhand news.
I love the rare times when I get
the Call for Help, whether it’s Justin,
31, asking how to fix a broken garbage disposal or Ana, 25, needing
a mechanic. But I also love it when
my kids have the confidence to solve
their own dilemmas—a bittersweet
point of pride.
For our own fathers
the rules were clear-cut.
Today’s dads must make
up the rules as we go.
PHOTOGRAPHS B Y MARK LUND; PHOTO ILLUS TRATIONS BY CHRIS O’RILE Y
I know I’m feeling puzzled, even
though my kids are grown. More
than 20 years ago, when my son and
daughter were small, I was committed
to spending time with them. I stayed
home with my oldest for two years,
and when I went to work full-time,
I declined golf invitations and boys’
nights out. In some small way I felt as
if I were waving the flag for the new
kind of dad, and others my age say
they felt the same. “I’m amazed at
how our parents kind of ignored what
was going on,” says Jon Hurst, 52, who
lives near Boston and is the father of
three adult children. “We are more
watchful, day by day, hour by hour.”
But now that both of my kids are
living several states away from my
wife and me, I find myself in a nether-
Like many boomer dads, I saw
myself as a parenting pioneer—more
active, engaged, and affectionate than
men of my father’s generation. And
now I’m discovering that forging
closer ties with children can have a
surprising downside. When kids
grow up, heavily involved fathers
can feel abandoned. Says Los Angeles
life coach Natalie Caine, founder of
Empty Nest Support Services, these
men don’t just “want a view in the
window but a seat in the living room.”
I know moms also grapple with the
task of; letting go, though, unlike most
men, they can discuss the transition
with role models who have gone be-
fore: their own mothers or other trust-
ed women. Many modern dads are
improvising, says John Duffy, Ph.D., a
clinical psychologist near Chicago and
author of The Available Parent. When
he and his brother talked to their fa-
ther about wanting to actively parent
their children, “He said, ‘C’mon, this is
women’s work,’ ” Duffy recalls.
Maybe it’s some comfort that many
younger men are following our lead.
The New York Times recently reported
on a significant increase in the number of fathers attending school parent
meetings in the past decade. And a report by the Pew Research Center also
found that fathers of children under
