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A sweeping trend is spreading across America, based on a very old idea.
Parenting, and riding the crest of this wave is Fatherhood. Instead of standing by and allowing their children to grow, as had been the norm this century, men are now taking an active role in the raising of their children. I know this, not because of intense research or statistical studies, but by observing and talking to the fathers out in the real world. Some are even leaving the work force to stay home with their children.
The post war era saw a severe decline in the parenting priority. The pressures of the boon years and the "Keeping up with the Jones's" mentality that permeated the airwaves, kept fathers more on the job than in the home. The women's movement, and their strive for equality, kept them more out of the home than in. The rising divorce was also pulling families apart . . . Added to this mix was an onslaught of parenting "How To" books that were basically preaching a hands off philosophy, both literally & figuratively. These said books seemed to absolve parents of their responsibility . . . "But the book said." was too often heard. .
As a result, we have seen; the Counter Culture of the '60's, where everything was tried, the Me First generation of the '70's, where everything went, leading to the Corporate America of the eighties, where greed was good. This spawned the Generation X'ers, a darker, more cynical and more sarcastic version of the sixties counterculture - completing the circle.
Part of the reason that new parents began to re-evaluate their priorities was the fear that this trend has instilled in them. ("There seems to be a lost generation of children out there, and I refuse to be responsible for another one".) However, the major reasons that raising our own children has become honorable again is due, in large part, to failures.
The ill fated Republican Party's "Family Values" political campaign of the 1992 presidential election that became an attack on Single Mothers (and a coup for the Democratic Party's 1996 'Soccer Moms' campaign). It is not so much that the politicians were involved in a noble cause, they were just trying to sell their product - a candidate or a platform. They did, however, manage to raise the national conscience; people started to reevaluate their personal priorities.
The inability of anybody, both public and private, to come up with a good and reliable child care system that was also affordable. And what of this mythical beast called Child Care? The nine to five workday and thirty-five hour work weeks are from old fables, and commuting eats up several more hours of the day. School holidays out number work holidays 10 to 1, and then factor in Spring Breaks, Winter Recess, and Summers Off! Not included in this is the days lost to inclement weather, plus illness and doctor visits, the parties and the plays and sporting events and other assorted extracurricular activities . . . This is not day care. . . Huge sums of money are being paid to near total strangers for the privilege of raising our children. (Up to half, and sometimes more of a family's second income goes towards childcare.)
Oddly enough, the failed marriage - the high divorce rate - has actually helped to promote this revival of parenting and fathering. Children of divorced parents have vowed to do things better, have learned from their parent's mistakes. Divorced fathers - a large majority of who have not been dipped into the 'deadbeat pool' - have had more of a hand on involvement with their children. Those men who start a second family are more aware of what they missed the first time, and are more experienced and confident the second time around. They also make up a significant portion of the new wave parent.
That new wave parent, the father as the primary care giver - which I have dubbed HOUSEDADS - is one of the fastest growing segments of society.
According to the latest available numbers from the Bureau of Statistical Guesses, more than four million children are raised in households where the father is the primary care giver. That translates into almost two million men. On out of every five at-home parent, is a man; ten percent of all American husbands are housedads.
Layoffs were one of the more common reasons fathers became the primary care givers for their children in the Eighties. At the start of this decade it was the advent of the Information Age, the home PC and communication technologies that have created more Home Offices and home based businesses and at home parenting.
Today, a man staying home to raise his children is simply a viable alternative. Men no longer have to be the bread winners. Women have made great strides in the work place (women occupy almost half of all upper-management positions) and women are finally beginning to earn equal wages for equal work. Man wives are earning more money than their husbands (at least 50% of married women earn half of more of their family's income). A women can and does earn enough to support a household.
More parents are now staying at home with their children and in this decade, FIVE times as man fathers are staying home than in the last one.
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