How to Dad
A conversation about parenting in the modern world
I was delighted to take part in a panel on parenting and the challenges of boys and men, at the Washington Post’s 2024 Global Women’s Summit. You can read a transcript of the whole event here. Also on the panel were Grace Bastidas, Editor in Chief of "Parents" magazine and Emily Oster, the Founder and CEO of ParentData. (Check out her recent podcast on boys, part of her awesome series on parenting). Our moderator was Sally Quinn, a contributing writer at the Washington Post. I used the opportunity to make four main points, summarized and lightly edited below.
1. When parent become a verb
If I could identify the year this [competitive parenting] became a problem it is the year that the noun "parent" became the verb "parenting." That's sometime in the '70s, as far as I can tell.
I remember trying to explain to my parents what parenting was. "What are you saying?" "I said parenting." "That's a verb now?" "Yeah, it's a verb now. It's a thing you do. Didn't you do parenting?" They're like, "No. We just had kids."
If people feel like college admissions or the economy generally is a very high stakes game, it feels like parenting then becomes high stakes. So I think it connects generally to the sense of what kind of world are you preparing your kids for, and if you fail as a parent, they will fail in the economy. And so it does feel quite existential for a lot of people.
2. Some of the villagers have to be men
It takes a village. I agree. Families come in all shapes and sizes. I agree. But some of the villagers should be men. We need to be very careful in our inclusion of different ways to raise kids that we don't advertently or inadvertently airbrush out the role of men.
The role of fathers has to change because their old role has clearly changed. But everything I see is that dads still matter. We used to say dads matter because they were breadwinners, providers. That's changed, for very good reason. But dads still matter, and we need to find policies and a culture that doesn't somehow see them as second-class parents who are somehow less important.
Sometimes I feel like we are stuck between a very conservative view that Dads’ matter, and that's why we need to bring back traditional marriage, and a more progressive view which is to question: Do dads matter, really? This can feel like a redundancy notice to dads.
We've got to find a better path between those two extremes.
3. Schools are not boy-friendly enough
There are some very big gender gaps now with boys falling a long way behind girls in school. Girls are twice as likely to be at the top of their high school GPA distribution. Boys are twice as likely to be suspended or expelled. Almost 1 in 4 boys have a "developmental disability," twice the rate of girls.
There's a bigger gender gap on U.S. college campuses today than there was in the 1970s, when we passed Title IX. It's just the other way around.
The education system, as a whole, in the U.S. now, is just not quite boy-friendly enough. And I think a lot of parents are struggling with that, and sometimes they end up blaming themselves.
Just as in the workplace, we really struggle to not have a default idea of a male manager or leader, in education, I sometimes think we default to the female student. We run the risk of treating boys like malfunctioning girls.
If we're serious about gender gaps we have to be serious about them in both directions. And right now the gender gaps in education, especially for working class boys and boys of color, are pretty wide.
4. We need a better politics of masculinity
We can have a conversation about masculinity, and not only can we, we have to have a conversation about masculinity in a positive way. We have to have competing versions. We have to have a good-faith conversation about this.
I understand it's a difficult time to make that argument. But honestly, you cannot ignore these issues. You cannot ignore these questions and then wonder why the people who are not ignoring them are getting all the attention.
All good stuff and all true. Boys are more likely to risk, which explains errant behavior differences. Boys are more likely to want adventure. This explains “learning disabilities.” Which is really teaching disabilities. And boys need a man in their life checking them at the door.
Here’s where it gets wild: we know that a child growing up in a non-conflict two parent home is less likely to enter the juvenile justice system. However, a child being raised by only a father is also less likely to enter the juvenile justice system to the same degree. Yup.
There was this organization that had boys learn life skills and bond with their peers and have a male leader.... oh yes The Boy Scouts! wait..uh... now it includes GIRLS too! and they've rebranded to be Scouts BSA b/c, ya know, it's not just for boys. hmm...
what other spaces are for boys only? hmmm. prison?