Stress And The Superdad

HEUNGMAN KWAN/INDEX STOCK

The past 30 years have seen the emergence of the working mom, the single mom, the supermom, the soccer mom and — because full-time motherhood is often considered a choice rather than a given — the stay-at-home mom. Yet aside from the recent categorization of NASCAR dads (which more pointedly concerns the significance of NASCAR than parenting), the title of dad has rarely been linked to a modifier. It would be wrong, however, to conclude that the role of fathers has remained unaltered; the majority of men today are vastly more involved in the rearing of their children and maintenance of their households than their fathers ever were. That no phrases have been coined to describe such behavior can probably be attributed to the fact that unlike women, men have not particularly organized, united or even been pro-active to effect these reforms but, in essence, adapted to the changes the women in their lives demanded for themselves.

That is not to say men resent the transformation. Data from focus groups, conversations with men around the country and a poll conducted by the men's cable network Spike TV and shared exclusively with TIME suggest that men, most interestingly those in their early 20s through early 40s — the first generation to come of age in the postfeminist era — are adjusting to their evolving roles, and they seem to be doing so across racial and class lines. But in straining to manage their responsibilities at work and home, many men say they don't feel an adequate sense of control in either realm. "There's a push-pull," says Kevin Lee, 40, a photographer in Salt Lake City, Utah, with two small children and a wife who works part time. "I feel like when I'm with the kids, it's great, and I enjoy that time. But in the back of my mind, I'm always thinking that I've got all these other things to do, like work around the house or job-related work."

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As pioneer superdads, these men have few role models. Not terribly long ago, a man went out into the world and worked alongside other men, and when he came home, the rest of the family busied itself with making him comfortable. Now, as with women of a generation ago, men are experiencing the notion of a second shift, and they are doing so at a time when downsizing, outsourcing and other vagaries of the economy have made that first shift feel disquietingly unstable. Says Dr. Scott Haltzman, 44, a psychiatrist in Barrington, R.I., with many male clients under 45: "Historically, men felt that if they applied themselves and worked hard, they would continue to rise within an organization." Now they must contend with a shaky economy, buyouts, layoffs and mergers, not to mention rapidly evolving technological advances. Of the 1,302 men polled, 75% said they were concerned about keeping up with changing job skills, and even among those 25 to 34, a presumably more tech-savvy cohort, 79% admitted to such concerns.

There is also uncertainty in men's roles at home. Says Bob Silverstein, an employment consultant and personal life coach in New York City: "Home has become one more place where men feel they cannot succeed." For as much as women desire and demand their husbands' assistance in floor waxing and infant swaddling, many men complain that their wives refuse to surrender control of the domestic domain and are all too adept at critiquing the way their husbands choose to help out. Haltzman, who gathers research on husbands through his SecretsOfMarriedMen.com website, points out that "there are a lot of things men do that women don't define as contributing to the household. If a man is in the yard and notices that the basketball is flat and he pumps it up, he gets no credit because it's not something that needed to get done in the wife's eyes. But from the man's perspective, it's just as important as picking up an article of clothing or doing the wash."

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