The Failings of Fatherhood
January 2023
Having a family, being a father, is not masculine. Congratulations. You’ve fulfilled your biological duty as a male. Any monkey could do that; in fact, they do. In fact, so do thousands of men who do so by accident — who the pseudo-masculine, pseudo-traditionalist men would frown upon. Being a father is, as we would all agree, so much more. Yet the pseudo-traditionalists would rather idolize a false masculinity which hails the 1950s nuclear family, work-oriented father, and the rest of the mess which supplied our current circumstance. They only wish to walk back 10 paces of a marathon scaled journey.
Fatherhood, as more than a biological concept, is one of many exercises in authentic masculinity. Biological fatherhood, paternity, is, by no means, its highest form. Many historical figures hallowed as archetypal and exemplary men, perhaps not so coincidentally, either had no children or little immediate involvement with their children. Being a father is a holy endeavor in its own right. The masses of men throughout history have had children, yet we do not particularly commend them. Those great men of history which we do commend, however, used the generative, active masculine spirit for other endeavors — commanding, constructing, etc., which we will term High Masculinity. They wielded the organizing, generative masculine powers to generate either sociological or material works for the ages. Lower forms of masculinity confine the generative powers of the masculine spirit to purely biological generation, whether intentionally as pseudo-traditionalists, or unintentionally as the masses of modern apathetic men. Pseudo-traditionalists discount any of the men who will actually be remembered for imprinting their will on society in some way, the men who are not family-oriented. The coming Nietzchean man, whom the pseudo-traditionalists desperately await, will have little time for family.
This is not to imply that High Masculinity has nothing to do with family, nor that Low Masculinity is purely trivial and imprudent. Most men would wish to be somewhere in the middle, though they fail to achieve this by their own fault or society’s. Anyone with sense, the intentional children-havers and the unintentional children-havers who dutifully accepted the role, will wish to impart some morality and sensibilities to their children. We all have some internal idea of what people should grow up to be. Most, it seems, though, leave this up to the government via public education. This entails the fault of society for men failing to achieve some modicum of High Masculinity in their parenting. However, who is to blame but the masses of men who take no action in their own homes to instill their children with what they think is proper? Whether that be something so tame as ensuring their children are religious or something so far as raising their children to see society and history differently. Apathetic men have no concept of the wider implications of imprinting little more on their children than niceties, trusting public education to form their children into an adult they approve. Should it be surprising that children turn out different than intended when their fathers only see them for a few hours in the evenings each weekday, meanwhile being surrounded by public educators who may have a different vision and children whose parents are equally distant? A man who works a regular job will see his coworkers more than his own wife and children. Add the fact that mothers, now, also do the same, and we must ask who is really parenting the children? Contemporary biological parents are just surrogates. They house the children during the nights to be raised without them.