As our national debates over the role of women, motherhood, and children continue to stir controversy, one topic has been conspicuously absent: the role of fathers. Far too often, as the recent furor over remarks by Harrison Butker at a small Catholic college-commencement ceremony attests, women as wives and mothers are almost always framed in isolation, with the presumption that women who embrace the time-honored vocation of marriage, and having a child, are on their own.
Today, fatherhood, once esteemed as a pillar of a flourishing American society, is either ignored or even denigrated as part of an oppressive patriarchy that burdens women. From Hollywood to our universities, men as fathers have instead become pariahs, shameful fixtures of an outdated way of life that we’ve moved beyond. There’s no avoiding that a significant contributor to this shift in habits and attitudes has been the hyper-individualism of a progressive ideology that reduces happiness to conceptions of self-expression and uninhibited lifestyle choices. Yet a related movement has also emerged on the right, with emancipated men glorified for their selfish pursuit of material wealth, cars, jewelry and fashion, body-builder physiques, and women (or many women) as sexual trophies. Is there a better way?
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