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As a child, Kevin Hughes loved being part of a big family. One of four children, he had many cousins. There were huge gatherings and hour-long performances of Ghost in the Graveyard. Hughes took it for granted that it was her job to take care of her younger relatives and was comfortable babysitting by the time she reached middle school. He included details and ideas about how he intended to have a father in the future.<\/p>\n
Today, Hughes, now 37, lives in Minneapolis with his wife and son, who will turn 1 this summer. She praises the way she was brought up and how comfortable she feels when she is around her infant son. But even though he was as ready to be a father as any man, Hughes admits the change has shocked the system.<\/p>\n
“You cross this line of no return,” said Hughes. “He will always be there, and you can do something as a parent to improve his life.”<\/p>\n
Parents have children – everyone understands this. But that doesn’t mean that everyone understands the nature of that experience. Fewer do before you have it, and that number may be shrinking: Recently released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that birth rates in the United States are at a record low, which just means fewer babies. It means that people are waiting and getting used to adult life without children.<\/p>\n
The average age of first fathers has risen steadily, from 27.4 years in 1972 to 30.9 in 2015, according to data released in 2017. That study also revealed that, during the same period, the number of first-time fathers over 40 doubled, from 4.1% to 8.9%. All this means that modern fathers have more time to think about what it would be like to be a father and less reason to take their expectations, informed by lifestyles that are not strict for children.<\/p>\n
Even men like Kevin Hughes don’t know what’s coming until it hits them.<\/p>\n
Accepted views on fathering behavior have changed significantly since millennial fathers were millennial children. Still, says Catherine Tamis-LeMonda, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at New York University, old stereotypes inform what men expect. The idea that men are responsible for being financial providers while women work as caregivers may be less acceptable than before. But that doesn’t mean that the monolithic view, still prevalent in mainstream images of American families, doesn’t obscure men’s views on potential child care roles.<\/p>\n
“We often have the issue that raising a child is a mother’s, and mothers do it better than fathers,” said Tamis-LeMonda, adding that this is why it is still “not cool,” in terms of society, for young men to think about wanting a family or talk about it. Not only are the views of men like those who raise them blocked by cultural constructs, they are also blocked by internalized views of masculinity.<\/p>\n
Those ideas can mislead men even when they make an effort to consider the kind of parents they might be.<\/p>\n
Before becoming a father, Thomas Gonnella thought he would have to discipline his family. He dreaded this development, which felt unnatural and inevitable. It never happened. Gonnella has two children and a wife who doesn’t mind being a “bad cop.”<\/p>\n
“In our culture, we have ideas about what fathers do and what mothers do.” “Even though 99 percent of it is cumulative, we look at it differently,” says Dante Spetter, Ph.D., a clinical child psychologist at Harvard who teaches child and adolescent development and cognitive development.<\/p>\n
Spetter notes that both men and women enter parenthood with unrealistic ideas about what it will be like, in terms of what the job really entails and how parenting fits into the rest of life. “I think that self-doubt is a part of you that no one expects, and when it comes to how to deal with that, mothers and fathers have different opinions,” he said.<\/p>\n
Another reality of the expectation gap, Spetter explains, is that often when people think of parenthood, they think of young children under the age of 5. “They don’t think about the child.<\/p>\n
When Sean Sullivan, who has a 4-year-old son, first became a father, he remembers the process of finding things, but he doesn’t remember spending time looking too far into the future. When his wife was pregnant, Sullivan says: “I didn’t look past the part now that you have a child. “Then all of a sudden, ‘What do I expect with this child?’ I just thought it would be too much work and too busy. I didn’t go into it with a lot of ideas about what being a father would be like, except that I loved children.”<\/p>\n
Men draw their conceptions of fatherhood based on popular culture, perceived social norms, parenting manuals, peers, and even social media, Tamis-LeMonda explains. But parenting styles are often built in the mold \u2014 or against the mold \u2014 of the adult’s parents.<\/p>\n
“However, being a father worked in their family and in their immediate community, that’s where they will get their ideas,” said Spetter. As a doctor, you often hear men talk about how they want to be different from their fathers. Often, it comes down to: “When it comes to men who are thinking about becoming fathers: What do they see at home?”<\/p>\n
Rick Fordyce was 41 when he and his husband welcomed their son in 2017. She was raised by her grandparents in West Virginia, grew up cooking with her grandmother and working in the garage with her grandfather, and knew she wanted to be a parent from a very young age.<\/p>\n
He says: “I don’t think society prepared me at all. If you look at TV since I was growing up, my mother was the main character.<\/p>\n
For Fordyce, developing his own style of fathering meant letting go of preconceived notions about how he intended to parent. “The part I didn’t expect so much was how willing I was to let everything else take a back seat: You always take first place,” he says. “You compromise a lot in your relationships. But there are more compromises in being a father than I expected.”<\/p>\n
One unexpected point of compromise: cooperative breeding. Both Spetter and Tamis-LeMonda refer to the concept of gatekeeping, among other behaviors that describe mothers micromanaging fathers. “Usually what happens in a male\/female couple is that the mother has very clear ideas about how things should be done\u2014what must be done\u2014and if the father sees it differently, he’s pressured to do it his way or pushed aside, he can’t be trusted,” Spetter said.<\/p>\n
At 32, Jorian Arneson isn’t a father, and he’s not sure he wants to be – mostly because he worries about how parenthood will affect his marriage. Arneson and his wife have been together for 13 years, since college, and he cherishes their relationship as it is. “Everything changes for some people when they have children, because they can’t deal with stress,” said Arneson. Her fears are completely unfounded: Research shows that having children irreversibly changes the dynamics of relationships, as pillow talk is replaced by diaper-related conversations and daily to-do lists related to children.<\/p>\n
On the other side of the border, Hughes also talked about how fatherhood is affecting his marriage. One thing he didn’t think much about before his son was born was how the paths of being a father and being a mother can collide. After witnessing peers struggle to get on the same page with parenting, from the “right” way to swaddle to the right time to introduce solid foods, she feels fortunate to be in sync about those expectations. It was not offered.<\/p>\n
“I won the lottery,” Hughes said. “It’s very important to your experience how your partner deals with it individually, and how you deal with it as a team.”<\/p>\n
This article was originally published