Fathers at Home: A Better View of Gender Roles in the Family

In reflecting on Father’s Day this year, I want to address the issue of a father’s role in the home. This issue is particularly difficult to discuss today, because, in my estimation, the issue is rarely well-framed. Take, for instance, the fact that for many years the General Social Survey (GSS) has asked respondents whether they agree or disagree with the following statement: “It is much better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family.”

In his IFS piece “What Gender War?” Richard Reeves reports approvingly that “almost in lockstep, American men and women are continuing to move away from the traditional view about gender roles in the family.” As evidence of a rising support for ‘gender equality,’ he cites the dramatic rise in the percent of men and women who disagree with the just mentioned statement: between 1977 and 2022, the percent of women rose from 37% to 81% and of men from 32% to 75 percent. 

This is indeed a dramatic shift. But just what this shift signifies is hard to discern.

I am inclined to distinguish, first, the issue of ‘gender equality’ and that of ‘gender roles in the family.’ Affirming distinct roles should not be conflated with holding ‘gender inequality.’ But more to the point here, I am concerned about how we articulate the distinct roles. The GSS’s statement, which Reeves identifies as “the traditional view,” draws a hard line between a man who “achieves outside the home” and a woman who “takes care of the home and family.” There certainly are those who in theory and/or in practice have such a view. But I think there is a ‘traditional’ view that—while having superficial similarity to this division—is nevertheless quite different and even better.

The Household as Community

This other, and arguably older, traditional view is tied to a robust notion of the household community. Here, human flourishing, understood primarily in terms of depth of character and relationships, calls for a community of daily life marked by significant work and leisure activities. The right order and well-functioning of such a community demand the significant investment of both husband and wife, father and mother. While recognizing a complex set of factors is behind the decline of such households, we might simply note the importance of economic changes. As Wendell Berry wrote in the 1980’s, “what passes now for economics…has strayed far from any idea of home.”

Affirming distinct roles in the family should not be conflated with holding gender inequality.

The ‘home’ referred to by the GSS, then, is a notably diminished entity in comparison to earlier households. Many besides Berry have observed that the post-industrial economy favors work outside the home to the detriment of work inside it. Generally, this shift goes hand in hand with a higher valuation of achievements in the professional realm beyond the domain of home.

From this vantage, it is not surprising that the view that puts a man’s place outside the home, and woman’s as taking care of it, is conflated with a position of gender inequality.

But a richer view of household offers good reason to reevaluate the importance of what both men and women do in the home, as well as a basis for articulating complementary roles compatible with true gender equality. 

A Better View

I suggest a different statement for which a survey might canvas agreement or disagreement—a statement that approximates an alternative ‘traditional’ view: A man’s work in ordering household life alongside his wife is a central commitment, even while he normally spends more time than his wife outside the home.

For many, the response might be somewhere in a range from puzzlement to disagreement. I suggest this is because most have little or no experience of household as a complex society whose nature and end demand that a man and a woman make its flourishing a shared priority.

I concur with Reeves (and Lyman Stone) in taking encouragement from the fact that in the last several years, there is a significant increase in the hours American fathers spend in child care and housework. But again, I wonder what this shift really betokens. 

It would be worth examining what we mean by ‘child care.’ Too often, it seems, it means keeping children well-occupied, while adults, often one or both parents, are doing something else—usually outside the home. We can ask how this compares with what the Greeks called paideia, the multifaceted project of raising youth to maturity. Similarly, we should consider what we mean by ‘housework’ and how it relates to the complex set of home-arts that characterized ‘traditional’ households. 

If it sounds like I am unwilling to recognize genuine signs of hope in contemporary society, then I am missing my mark. My purpose is to suggest a different and, I think, richer approach to thinking about the role of a father, an approach that cuts across the issue of gender equality and challenges us to look again at key realities such as human flourishing, the nature of marriage, and what children really need—and what these mean for what fathers and mothers do in the home.

[We need] a radical shift today in our understanding and practice of homelife, and a richer kind of paternal involvement.

That men’s time attending to home and children is trending upwards is indeed a good thing. But I suggest that the real good of people—youth, adult men and women, and the elderly—calls for a radical shift today in our understanding and practice of homelife, and for a richer kind of paternal involvement.

There is perhaps no better time than Father’s Day to ask whether we have underestimated how much being a father demands of a man on a daily basis in the home—and how this might contribute to a deeper life-satisfaction in men, as well as in their wives and children.

Ideas for Fathers

As a start in a good direction, here are three concrete things a father might do to deepen his role and presence in the home, taking a cue from the centrality of work and leisure activities in households across cultures and epochs.

1. Choose a hand-art to practice in the home that directly serves life in the household community. Ideally, make it a work that can be shared with wife and/or children. Beyond mere ‘hobby,’ such work can be a key context for personal formation—of all involved—and of deepening relationships. Gardening and carpentry are excellent examples.
2. Choose a specific leisure activity to prioritize, whether once a week on Sunday, or at certain times during the week. What I like to call porch times—named from a classic instance of the genus—are times of plenitude when household members come together in some context conducive to conversation, story-telling, or whatever else happens to come up. Today we must be intentional and creative to make such times happen.
3. Finally, choose one meal a week and commit to giving it a unique place in our shared life. Properly done, such a meal is an irreplaceable instantiation and exercise of all we hold dear. Divide the work and share it; everyone has something to do, from preparation, to serving, and clean-up. Prioritize manners; maybe even have a simple dress code. Carry on or start new traditions, in prayers said, conversations fostered, or even songs sung. Put technology in its place, all in view of the deeper good of persons.

In each of these areas, a father has a unique place. Hard to capture well in words, his place involves both leadership and service; indeed, he often serves by leading. His efforts are a gentle yet strong expression of shared spousal convictions, wherein he recognizes that his interest, initiative, and enthusiasm give ground and support for his wife’s efforts, as together they craft this incomparable reality called a household. Especially with the common situation that a man spends more time away from the home, his efforts here will be central to reclaiming our homes—and making them the bastion of vibrant life we all so deeply need them to be. Especially today. 

John Cuddeback addresses these and other principles for renewing our homes in in his new book The Intentional Household: Living as If People Matter.

*Photo credit: Shutterstock

Editor's Note: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, policies, or positions of the Institute for Family Studies.