The Masculine Dad
I’ve written before about Australia’s impressive efforts to boost the perception and role of fatherhood. What I didn’t know was that the urgency of these programs may have to do with the country’s falling birth rate. Much like the United States, more Australians are choosing to have fewer children, later in life.
Professor Michael Chapman, head of women’s and children’s health at the University of New South Wales, says that—in Australia—it’s become ‘almost manly not to have a child‘. In the U.S., the trend isn’t so much ‘manly’ as it is (for lack of a better term) ‘progressive’. It’s considered noble to postpone or forego having children in order to further one’s own life and career. Popular media often portrays children as financial burdens, or speed bumps keeping us from how life’s supposed to be. Keeping us from what we want.
Not that I believe people should become parents for the sake of having children. My wife and I are perfectly happy being the parents of an only child, no matter how wistfully my mother sighs. I’m also a proponent of having only as many children as you can support. But it makes perfect sense that the general perception of children as the new ball-and-chain could result in smaller families.
The difference is that the U.S. can afford the trend. From 2000-05, its birth rate fell by only 0.4%. By contrast, Australia’s fell by just over 6%. Concerned about the country’s future base population and workforce, in 2004 the Australian government issued a series of financial incentives to encourage families to have more children.
Fatherhood may be the key. Improve the image of the father, and more men may be willing to face the challenge. When our son was born, my wife was—I felt—overly sensitive to my feelings about carying a diaper bag, let alone a paisley one. ‘I can get something different, if the light blue bothers you,’ she offered. But I didn’t care. After becoming a father, I’d never felt so manly.
October 13th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
I have three kids and when they were little toting the around usually entailed more than a single diaper bag. It felt more like going on Safari.
Real men love babies.