In a world which is not contented until everything is categorized and ranked, the question is inevitable. Can stay-at-home dads be considered to be “manly men” in our society? What, with all the cooking and the cleaning and the soothing and the bottles and the diaper changes and all that other prissy stuff?
Let’s just talk “manly men,” then, shall we?
What is “manly” behavior? What era are we talking about? The Ancient Greeks would have said the epitome of adult male behavior is to enlist your friends to help you abduct a teenage boy and shower him with gifts at the ancient equivalent of an Elk’s Lodge.
I’m guessing that’s not what people mean by manly men?
Who are we using as a measuring stick for “manliness” here? Ernest Hemingway? Brock Lesnar? Alexander the Great? Clint Eastwood? Jack Johnson? Archie Bunker? Jim Anderson from Father Knows Best? Is manliness best measured in lovers? Bench press reps? Wisdom? Material gain? How much weight do you put on each?
What’s the common thread? Spoiler alert: There isn’t one. “Manly men” can look any which way so long as you’re protecting, providing, and guiding.
Framing things in a modern context, if “manly men” means “look like the dudes in the beer commercial,” then no, I suppose we stay-at-home dads are not manly men. Stay-at-home dads don’t have the time to waste on such inanities and cannot afford to engage in the risk taking behavior exhibited by the males depicted therein. Do stay-at-home dads smoke cigars in their muscle car on their way to shoot pool with the other manly men at the bar with football on in the background? Not likely, and if that’s the measure of manly men, well, I guess we stay-at-home dads just aren’t.
But let’s go way back. What, in an evolutionary, caveperson sense, would it behoove “manly men” to do when it comes to engaging in a family structure?
Manly men ensure family members are fed.
Stay-at-home dads are pretty good at this. Nobody’s missing a meal around here – if I get busy and sail past noon, I get a loud reminder from Sprocket that it is lunch time. Similarly, if it’s been too long since Tater got a bottle, I hear about it. Is it “unmanly” of me to feed my kids? Given I apparently shouldn’t drag any other males down in this worldview, would it be more manly of me to waste resources paying a strange woman to do it while I, I don’t know, go beat rocks together or something?
If you’re a stay-at-home dad, you’re a hunter-gatherer. Just because prairies and forests have been replaced with grocery stores and farmers’ markets doesn’t diminish your work. You’re still tasked with securing food for your family. Curating recipes, meal planning, grocery shopping, cooking – all pursuits of manly men.
At least, they have been for 99.75% of human history. If you’re going to argue the dudes chucking sharpened sticks at mammoths and bison before they spit-roasted the pieces they hacked off weren’t manly men, you might as well punch out now, because you might be beyond convincing here.
Manly men protect family members from harm.
How better to do this than to be constantly on guard on the premises of one’s residence? Nobody with an intent to hurt my kids is getting through my front door in one piece. And beyond physical protection, there’s all the other intangible forms of protection. What happens when Sprocket needs reminded failing at something doesn’t make you a failure? When Tater fails at an attempt at standing up, conks his head, and needs a cheerful face celebrating his attempt and telling him he’s okay?
Would it be more manly of me to leave my children with sorely underpaid women at a daycare facility outside of my control, while I go make less money than I’m paying the daycare hitting things with a hammer creating wealth for some other man? Does it diminish my masculinity to watch over my children – to bolster my daughter’s confidence and fortify my son’s resolve?
Manly men invest in the safety and security of their dwelling.
Manly men have been in the business of poring over the ins and outs of their domiciles for centuries. Castles have been constructed, moats dug, rafters raised, yurts insulated, patrols conducted, and maintenance completed under their direction. When did that change? When did fortifying a dwelling against the elements become weak or womanly work?
Just because yours is more modest doesn’t make it less worthy of your defense.
(Image courtesy Birmingham Museums Trust)
I know what the house needs because I’m here, observing it. If something breaks, it doesn’t stay broken for long, because I find it fast and start turning a wrench on it. Would it be manlier for me to be somewhere else? In some office with fluorescent lighting making tippy-taps on a keyboard for some goober in a striped suit to happen by and critique?
Manly men teach their offspring survival skills.
If I’m present with my children at home, I can explain the world to them. I can teach Sprocket how bank accounts work, the dynamics of the water cycle, why she can’t call her dear departed great-grandmother on the phone, how my coffee goes from a mountainside through a supply chain and comes to be in my insulated mug, and how the insulated mug works. I can give Tater an unending parade of textures, tastes, and sounds to puzzle over as he has the run of the house to crawl around in. I can read, tell stories, play, teach.
She’d be lucky to get more than three crayons, scrap paper and a dismissive pat on the head at a lot of daycares. He’d be lucky to get more than one toy chucked into his nine square foot playpen. Would it be manlier of me to have stupider kids?
Manly men ensure resources aren’t taken by others.
Everybody gets hung up on the income here. “Oh, you don’t work. Oh, you don’t make money.” But nobody tends to pound a calculator about the out-go here. Finances are a two-way valve, friend. Yes, I am forfeiting $X per hour at whatever job you want to throw me into that takes me away from my kids all day. But to give my kids anything approaching the days they have now, what would it cost?
Childcare
Forget a daycare – my kids don’t currently have to compete for an adult’s attention with thirty other snot-nosed children – so what would a live-in nanny cost while I’m doing my manly work? Probably more than X, and we’re just getting started.
Maintenance
How much would it cost, every which way, for someone else to do all of this?
How much would the parade of plumbers, handymen, electricians, housekeepers, grocery couriers, pet sitters, landscapers, carpenters, and chefs cost? If I’m off wrangling cattle or demolishing a grain silo or whatever qualifies as “manly men” work at the moment, either my wife and kids get to suffer for it, or I’m dropping even more coin replacing the work I’m doing. Are those manly things to do? Making things worse for my family or enriching other families at our expense?
Flex Time
The flexibility of my post is worth something as well. If I’m hacking on carcasses at the butcher or beating on an anvil down at Ye Olde Blacksmyth Shoppe, you can bet I can’t just leave at the drop of a hat to go on an impromptu family vacation, or take my kids to the doctor, or take my car to the shop. I’d have to beg another man for time away from them to pwiddy pwease be able to take care of my family. Is that a manly state of affairs?
As you might be sensing, I’m of an opinion that you can simultaneously be pretty manly and be a stay-at-home dad. It’s not automatic. If you’re just making sure your kids don’t bludgeon one another with saucepans but otherwise leaving them to vegetate in the glow of screens while you play video games, I wouldn’t consider that to be very manly.
But if you’re a stay-at-home dad who feeds and protects and invests and teaches and reserves, fatherhood at home is as manly as you make it.
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This post was previously published on THEUNBOTHEREDFATHER.COM.
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