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Warm father or real man?

In 1958, the prominent childcare advice writer and pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock told readers that ‘a man can be a warm father and a real man at the same time’. In this revised edition of the bestseller Baby and Child Care, the American author dedicated a whole section to ‘The Father’s Part’. This was a much lengthier discussion of men’s role in caring for their babies and young children than in the first edition, but the role of the father remained very much secondary to that of the mother. Though Spock advised readers it was ‘the wrong idea’ to consider childcare as the sole responsibility of the mother, it was clear that he thought the father’s responsibility in day-to-day care remained rather minimal, in part because of the lack of interest of fathers themselves. He added that it was ‘Better to play for fifteen minutes enjoyably, and then say, “Now I’m going to read my paper,” than to spend all day at the zoo, crossly.’

Having children had long been understood as a sign of manhood, proving men’s virility and adult status. Jim Bullock, for example, who was born in 1903, recollected the definite ideas around virility and masculinity in the mining village of Bowers Row in Yorkshire. He described:

The first child was conceived as soon as was decently possible, for the young husband had to prove his manhood. If a year passed without a child—or the outward sign of one being on the way—this man was taunted by his mates both at work and on the street corner by such cruel remarks.

He added that men were expected to suffer some of the same symptoms as their wife during pregnancy, such as morning sickness and toothache, as well as losing weight as their wife gained it. If he didn’t experience these effects, his love for and fidelity to his wife could be questioned.

With increasing knowledge about birth control, sex, and childbirth across many parts of British society as the twentieth century progressed, these views became outdated.

Having children was still a sign of achieving adult masculinity. However, too much interaction with anything to do with pregnancy, birth, and babies could also be emasculating—this was, of course, ‘women’s business’. David, a labourer from Nottingham, who became a father in the 1950s, highlighted how he kept his distance from both the birth and caring for his new baby, ‘because it wasn’t manly’.

Some fathers were becoming more willing to help out with children. Mr. K from Preston described how ‘relaxing’ he found it to sit giving one of his babies a bottle after work. Yet, though attitudes to men’s roles in childcare were gradually shifting, it was the relationship between masculinity and fatherhood that changed more substantially in the middle of the twentieth century.

What can be found in the 1940s and 1950s in Britain was a new kind of relationship between fatherhood and masculinity. This was, in fact, a time when the ‘celebrity dad’ became prominent in the press. In 1955, for example, the Daily Mirror published a feature on actor Kenneth More, interviewed whilst he took care of his toddler. In 1957, it featured an article and large image of the singer Lonnie Donegan with his three-year-old daughter, apparently enjoying singing together at home. Sports stars and royals were also the subject of this kind of attention, and seemed to embody Spock’s claim that men indeed could be a real man and a warm father at the same time. More ‘ordinary’ dads also hinted at this change. Whilst taking an overly active role in the physical care of babies remained potentially tricky for many men, their identities were increasingly encompassing a more caring and fatherly side. Mr. G, born in 1903, suggested that there was change around the First World War; by the 1920s, men were much happier to be seen taking their child for a walk in the area he lived in Lancashire. And Martin from Oldham, whose first child was born in the mid-1950s, described how he proudly took his child in its pram for a beer in his local pub. Men’s roles with their children hadn’t been radically reshaped. But whilst in earlier generations, it was simply having children that was a sign of manliness, by the 1950s, being seen as an involved father was becoming part of an ideal vision of masculinity.

The importance of fatherhood to the achievement of certain ideal of masculinity has ebbed and flowed across the twentieth century; it could both prove and challenge a sense of manliness. Today we see plenty of evidence of men proudly displaying their fatherhood—the man with a pram or carrying a baby in a sling isn’t so rare any more. Yet, in every generation there are more or less involved fathers; plenty of men throughout the twentieth century, and much earlier, enjoyed spending time with their children and felt close to them. Today, women, for the most part, still take on the burden of childcare, even if there are plenty of couples who do things differently. Historical research helps question the idea that the ‘new man’ of the last couple of decades is quite so new—and by thinking about how fatherhood relates to masculine identity, we can better understand changes to parenting and gender roles over time.

Image Credit: “Father’s Strength” by Shavar Ross. CC by NC-ND 2.0 via Flickr.

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