The Evolution of Dads

An excellent article was passed on to me today from hlei. John Wilkins is the author and a dad concerned about doing the right things for his children. I thought it was well written and worth sharing. It seeks out the deeper meaning of what it means to be a dad and how there are differences between generations, societal mores, and religious expectations.

The weight of being a parent today is excessive, and for fathers immensely confusing. Perhaps my dad did love me, and perhaps he even liked me – I’ll never know. It wasn’t expressed under the conventions of the day, but at least he knew what was expected of him. I almost never have. I hope I didn’t screw it up too badly (my kids say no, but they aren’t yet in a position to know, one way or the other). I don’t have the comfort of knowing I followed the conventions, because between his death and now, things have changed dramatically, and the conflicting social rules are incoherent – feminists say one thing, the many religious and psychological “experts” all say something different (to each other), and of course there’s the generational differences.