Gen X Daddies

When I read the article, Gen X Dad by Patricia Wen, it felt (for lack of a less cloying and overused word) affirming to see this cultural trend, of which my nuclear family is a part, being recognized in "the media." It seems to me that in the Baby Boom generation, fathers already tended to want to reject the Distant Dad role, as they felt wounded by their own fathers' adherence to this type. To some extent, Baby Boomer dads did revise the script by spending more time with their families, but, for the most part, they remained the designated family breadwinners, content to continue defining themselves in terms of their careers and forcing wives/mothers to do most of the crappy, day-to-day housework and childrearing. GenX men seem to have (as a broad, sweeping generalization) taken this one step further and assumed an active role in actually running their households, probably partially due to new economic realities; if both parents are working full-time to just have a sporting chance at maintaining the standard of living their parents were accustomed to, then no one has an excuse to opt out of a full share of the parenting responsibilities. (Or maybe it's more that our cultural expectations have finally caught up with what has been the prevailing economic reality for the past 20-30 years).

Lately, I've noticed how much our (or at least my) expectations for how men and women behave within relationships and family systems have truly changed over the past thirty years by observing the portrayal of the marriages in a couple of recent films based on books. In AWidow for One Year by John Irving and We Don't Live Here Anymore by Andre Dubus, the stormy, troubled marriages that were depicted made sense in terms of the time period in which they were set, the 1960's and 1970's; the families feature the husband/father as provider primarily defined by his career with wife/mother who manages the household and children's needs. Both The Door in the Floor, a 2004 film starring Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger which is based on AWidow for One Year, and We Don't Live Here Anymore, which is based on the novella of the same name, were shifted to the present day in their movie versions, and, I would argue, suffered as a result. The problems in the three marriages all share fairly common contributing factors which make more sense in context of the Baby Boom and earlier generations, such as the wives' boredom and frustrations with the limitations of their roles as well as the stress involved in being the culturally prescribed primary caregiver of the children. When these factors and characters are transplanted from the era in which they were written or set by the writer into the current generational context, I think the stories, in spite of their universal themes and the interest generated by the plots and characters, ring a bit hollow. Especially while watching We Don't Live Here Anymore, when the husband (played by Mark Ruffalo) was berating his wife (played by Laura Dern) for her poor housekeeping, I kept thinking, "That bastard... why doesn't he do some cleaning if he feels that strongly about it and stop trying to make her feel bad about her shortcomings in that area? Why is it only her job?" Whereas in the novella from the 1970's, I saw it (okay, probably with a bit of that smug, don't-we-know-better-now feeling) as a reflection of its time, I was constantly questioning the motivation of the same characters in the movie who seemed a bit out of step with their millenium-era surroundings.

I suppose this whole "new dad" phenomenon could be overblown, and I could be part of a small trend that will fade and make way for more "traditional" male/female gender roles, but I hope not. I think another important issue the article skims over is the idea of both parents wanting to build in more time with their children in spite of the need for both parents to work to support the family. As someone who currently works a crazy, part-time overnight schedule in order to be able to be around during the days with my kids, I also identify with this desire among the parents profiled in the article. I think the best be might be the idea of both parents working a combined 60 hours per week (articulated here). Of course, for such a plan to be workable, we'd have to see the return of "big government" with all of the supposedly-evil regulations and government-sponsored programs that entails. So, I guess I'm also hoping for a shift over to the left that could make such plans a widespread reality.