Fetus Envy

One area where manliness has yet to storm the beaches, however, is the literature of fatherhood, or, more precisely, the how-to guides for expectant fathers. That such a genre should exist in the first place–it didn’t until a few years ago–suggests that today’s father is believed to play quite a big role in the life of his new, even prenatal, child. The expectant-fatherhood books can offer quite useful practical tips, but their ideal father is so fully a part of the pregnancy one suspects he’s suffering from womb envy.

Indeed, the new dad prescribed and celebrated in the half dozen or so new or newish books I surveyed does not occupy his own, separate sphere of influence in the making and rearing of children. He is in fact in competition with the mother, for respect as a parent and for time with his child. He is a persistent agitator for public recognition of his thoughts, his feelings, and his role as a parent.

But the first thing one notices about the new fatherhood books is that they could all be subtitled “How to Be a Good Father While Being Nothing Like Your Father.” To see how radically they depart from the old school, it’s helpful to take a backward glance at a precursor–say, the charmingly outdated 1958 work “How To Be A Father,” which turned up in the 25-cent bin at my local public library. The author is longtime newspaper columnist Frank B. Gilbreth Jr., better known as a co-author of the family-life classic “Cheaper by the Dozen.”

Writing around the time many of today’s fatherhood experts were born, Gilbreth speaks in the old clichés about men and women. Here’s his advice on how to receive the news that one’s wife is pregnant: “No matter how casually or how flippantly the news is broken, the husband is supposed to respond with awe and tendernesss. He must remember about not trying to match his wife’s assumed nonchalance. To be avoided at all costs are such jests as, ‘Okay, toots, who’s the father?’ and ‘Don’t tell me your troubles.'” Gilbreth says it’s better to try something along the lines of, “All my fondest dreams have come true at last.” And for icing on the cake, he suggests the following lines: “I’m going to start taking care of you from now on. Why don’t you tiptoe up to bed and let me fix supper? No, wait a minute–let me carry you up those stairs. That’s the girl. Up you go. Honestly, honey, for a young mother, you don’t weigh a thing.”

Today, that guy–Gilbreth’s expectant dad, the playful, protective, pre-feminist male with all the joie de vivre–is the bad guy. Most outmoded of all is his sense that, as Gilbreth puts it, “In the dead-serious, true-life drama of creation, he plays no more than a bit part–the comic relief.” The new, reformed tracts never pass up a chance to complain about how distant and cold fathers used to be. Above all, they are determined to move the father right into the center of the action.

In the recent bestseller “The Expectant Father” by Armin A. Brott and Jennifer Ash (the first in a series of successful books by Brott), the male is far more than a bit player. He has a lead part, a title role even. The father is, in fact, pregnant. Yes, pregnant. When he tells his friends the good news, saying “We’re pregnant,” he means it literally. Now you might think that being pregnant is a condition inalienable from women, never to be enjoyed by men other than the occasional medical spectacle searching for his fifteen seconds of tabloid fame. Not according to Brott, the “superdad’s superdad,” as Time magazine calls him, and probably the most influential contemporary writer on what it means to be a daddy.

In Brott’s telling, the father is every bit as pregnant as the mother. Naturally, Brott finds it remarkable that “just about every study that’s ever been done on the subject has shown that women generally ‘connect’ with their pregnancies sooner than men do.” It is quite a feat to write a book about expectant fatherhood while downplaying the differences between men and women, yet this is exactly what Brott seems to be aiming for. It leads him into stunners like: “Even though you and your partner are both pregnant at the same time, you’re not experiencing the pregnancy in exactly the same way or at the same pace.”

Beyond this, “The Expectant Father” tends to treat its subject as a new class of victim, condoning self-pity and self-involvement at every turn. Around the end of the first trimester, Brott notes, the mother may get caught up in her own thoughts. “The danger, however, is that while your partner is turning inward or bonding with her own mother, you may end up feeling left out.”

And if it’s not your wife who’s shutting you out, it’s her doctor. Brott points to a small, obviously cockeyed, study showing “most men felt that their presence at the prenatal visits was perceived as ‘cute’ or ‘novel’ and that their partners were considered the only patients.” Of all the things for a man to complain about–that he’s not receiving enough medical attention from his wife’s OBGYN!

Of course, it can be hard for a young man (or even a not-so-young man) to grow up on short notice and face the formidable responsibilities of parenthood. But Brott certainly doesn’t help matters any by justifying the expectant father’s self-centeredness. When the fifth month rolls around, Brott says, “Don’t be surprised if you begin to become preoccupied with your own thoughts–sometimes to the exclusion of just about everyone else, even your partner.” This message is repeated often, as the book progresses through the nine months of pregnancy. Only when his wife is actually in labor and the baby is being delivered is the expectant father told, “This is one time when your partner’s needs–and they aren’t all physical–come first.”

Happily, there are better books than Brott’s, though none quite so widely read or recommended. Quinton Skinner (no relation) offers a Gen-X antidote to Brott’s boomer narcissism. With little throat clearing, on page 10 of “Do I Look Like a Daddy to You?”, he nails down the most important message for expectant fathers: “This is not the time to focus on your trepidation. . . . This is not the time for a prolonged examination of your feelings.” (The italics are in the original.) And in one other way, the book marks a welcome return to the 1950s Gilbreth point of view. The author has no difficulty in stating the obvious about expectant fathers: “Biology has placed you on the sidelines for now.”

Despite getting these basics right, Skinner’s book remains a sensitive-guy’s guide to fatherhood and a little cloying in its political correctness. It usually refers to the newborn as “she” and “your daughter,” as if the expectant father needs to be beaten over the head with the possibility that he may have a girl. Skinner–like almost all of the writers whose books I looked at–is also of the “partner” school of thought, avoiding language that might be construed as exclusive or judgmental–even though it’s generally in the best interests of the mother and the child that the expectant father be more than a boyfriend or a partner, and in fact a husband.

It is notable that my research turned up no fatherhood books that said, “Want to be a good father? Well, if you aren’t already married to your baby’s mother, start there.” Another problem with these books is that they belabor the obvious–typical is a list of 15 “ways to show fatherly love”: a kiss, a hug, a knowing wink, a high-five, and so on–while paying too little attention to the distinctive contribution the male parent really can make.

For example, because the expectant father isn’t pregnant, he is free to help out with additional housework. And although he has his own adjustment to contend with, his hormones aren’t raging the way his wife’s are. This should allow him to serve up humor and optimism to help his wife weather her pregnancy with aplomb. Gilbreth’s old-fashioned father, though maligned by his descendants, had no difficulty cheering up his wife when she was suddenly terror-stricken that she was going to be an awful mother, or playing the calm-and-collected mate when his wife mistook her gas pains for a fetal crisis. And he considered it his God-given duty to provide what financial support he could muster, without burdening his wife with endless complaints about how hard and scary his life was all of a sudden.

Clearly, these just-for-fathers books do not so much fill an existing need as suggest a need in order to create a market for themselves. Call it the greeting-card strategy: Invent an occasion for which your product is necessary.

Which would be pretty harmless if their authors confined themselves to practical tips instead of whining about the burdens of new daddies, as when “The Joy of Fatherhood” complains that the very first drawback of breastfeeding is that the father ends up “feeling left out.”

Hilarious? Yes. Manly? Well, let’s just say that manliness won’t be making any comeback as long as men go around wishing they had mammary glands. Seriously, the sooner we abandon the creepy idea that expectant fathers should act like wimps and persecution-mongers the better. Everyone knows that real men don’t complain–any more than they need books to tell them that the work of carrying their children to term falls to their wives.

David Skinner is an assistant managing editor at The Weekly Standard.