The Real Cost of Male Privilege

We all talk about male privilege. While it's true that men tend to earn more, have more education, and dominate trade industries like plumbers, electricians and mechanics, men also face the burden of being the expected bread winner once married. They enjoy benefits as singles but if they want to settle down they may find their wife doesn't make enough to justify daycare over her staying home. Where does that leave men? A lot of fathers work long days to pay for things like dance and karate. When they get home it's a struggle just to engage with their family. They are so busy chasing the next promotion that they miss play time, bed time stories and might not be there in time for dinner.

This is the new absentee father. The father in front of the TV, computer, or tablet missing from the dinner table. Millennials have delayed starting families and some choose to forgo parenthood all together. Millennial women are just as ambitious as the boys and many are in no hurry to rush down the aisle into marriage with a baby carriage. On average, people are waiting until their late 20's for their first marriage. A hundred years ago people still married as teenagers.

Men face pressures from society that tell them that they should be able to handle it all. It's a fallacy to think you can find time to be a master at your craft, coach pop warner, take your wife dancing and still get 8 hours of sleep each night. With so much pressure it's easy to see why men are pressured to not make the same mistakes of their fathers while trying to find balance and navigate life.

As a society, we are more distracted than we've ever been. Cell phones provide us with connection. Sometimes dad's more connected to his fantasy football league than his son who's sitting next to him on the couch watching the game. Family time looks different in the 21st century, more so than it has in any other time in history.

A hundred years ago people married and had big families. This was in part because there was no birth control, but also because we needed big families just to survive. Farmers and tradesmen relied on labor from their children just to keep the lights on. Women stayed home because there was no daycare or TV dinners. It wasn't until the 1940's and WWWII that women even entered the work force but they went back to homemaking once the soldiers came home. Back then, a man could work a trade and support a family of six or more by himself. A young man didn't have to go into debt to get a degree to be able to provide.

Men and women need to learn to work together. They need to share in responsibilities of earning income, child care, and house work. There is no shame in a man who can't do it all alone. Children need fathers to be involved in their lives. Strong fathers set examples for their children. They teach boys how to be men and show their daughters what a good husband is suppose to do. While no one can do it all, men can have fulfilled lives if they find margin. They may need to change jobs to have more flexibility. Right now is the best job market we've seen for applicants since before the great recession. Because of Covid, there are more remote jobs available than in any other time in history.

The family unit looks very different than it did a hundred years ago. Millennial couples tend to be more egalitarian than previous generations. Families tend to be smaller because raising a family is very expensive. We need to learn to be more interdependent on each other and stop missing out on memories because of motivation.