ALTHOUGH conventional wisdom would have it that men have traditionally cared more for their work than their children, the truth is that men have gone to work precisely in order to care for their children. Unfortunately this imperative has inevitably drawn men away from direct involvement in family life.
According to US surveys 80 per cent of working men would like to be able to take six months leave from work on the birth of their babies to look after their children full time. Most men would prefer to spend more time at home but that option has never been available.
The belief that women going out to work is the reason for the crisis of fatherhood is a spurious one. The real problem has been that men have had to work too much rather than that they now work less than they did.
It's true, however, that men are now much less of the labour monolith they once were. In the Europe of 30 years ago just eight per cent of adult males were outside the workforce; today's figure is three times that. The graph for women, meanwhile, has been travelling in the opposite direction. It is estimated that by the end of this century there'll be more women than men working in the US, with other western societies set to follow.
The problem as it comes to bear on fatherhood is that we are now entering the hangover phase of the industrial era. The economic culture no longer requires men to be free of emotional or nurturing binds to his home and children but the culture which was created to make, him available to the workplace remains. He is being phased out of the workplace but, far from being readmitted into the family home, his lack of economic status simply facilitates his banishment.
With more and more women in full employment it is likely that a future economy will depend on women to the same extent that, until recently, the old model depended on men. This will inevitably place great strain on women who wish to have children. And with man being gradually reduced to the status of a gender dodo, the outcome will be an even greater imbalance than anything we witnessed in the past. In the future it is not impossible that half the female population will be out in the formal workplace, employing the other half to mind their children. The fathers, meanwhile, will be [kicking their heels at the street corner, hoping to catch a glimpse of their children on the way to school. Nobody, other than the most extreme misandrists, could desire such an outcome.