Today, Explained - Who is the modern American dad?

Episode Date: September 28, 2025

Young men are more interested in becoming parents than young women are, and there's a growing number of single dads by choice. A look at modern fatherhood. This episode was produced by Devan Schwartz, edited by Megan Cunnane, fact-checked by Melissa Hirsch, engineered by Adriene Lilly and hosted by Jonquilyn Hill.  Thanks to Jonquilyn Hill for sharing a family photo for our episode image today. Image of dad John and baby Jonquilyn courtesy of the Hill family. If you have a question, give us a call on 1-800-618-8545 or send us a note here. Listen to Explain It to Me ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rinse takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door, expertly cleaned and folded. So you could take the time once spent folding and sorting and waiting to finally pursue a whole new version of you. Like T-time U. Or this T-time U. Or even this T-time U. Said you hear about Dave? Or even T-time, T-time, T-time, T-time U. So update on Dave.

It's up to you. We'll take the laundry. Rinse. It's time to be great. From Pushkin Industries, I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and heavyweight is back. The new season is bigger than ever. Bigger hopes? I keep waiting for this moment when he says, Mom, I get it, I'm sorry. Bigger dreams. Tom Hanks wants to meet with you. This is a real chance.

And bigger heartbreaks. I thought it would be my movie moment. And maybe he would even whisper in my ear. I've always been in love with you. Check out new episodes of heavyweight on Apple Podcasts. The idea of the dad and the idea of fatherhood is constantly able. We're in this sort of time period where I think, like, what it means to be a man culturally is shifting really rapidly. I always wanted to be a dad, so becoming a father was scary, but it was the natural thing I wanted to do to find something more purpose.

in my life. I'm John Blin Hill, and this is explained it to me from Fox. There's a real case of baby fever going around, and it's coming from young men. 57% of young adult men want to be parents now. Compare that to just 45% of women the same age who want to have a kid one day. This stat kind of turns our traditional ideas about parenthood on its head, which got us thinking about what fatherhood means right now. So I'm going to be really honest with you, why did I become a dad?

If you'd ask me at the time, I really didn't have a strong answer for you. The big change in my life is actually about three years ago I went sober, and because of my son, it was one of the easiest things ever. So the most rewarding greatest thing that ever happened in my life has also led to losing a lot of friendships. Maybe we're just surface level or just a different season of my life. So today, we're going to ask and answer some questions about dads that reflect wider changes in American culture. Like, where did our notion of the dad in American life first come from?

What explains a growing trend of single fathers by choice? And what challenges do men face once they actually become dads? I think we think of the dad specifically as just this sort of universal idea. This is Phil Macyac. He's an expert on dads, and I mean that literally. He teaches a seminar at Washington University in St. Louis called Dad Culture Studies. He's also a TV critic at The New Republic, and he's writing a book called Dad, a pop history. This is a relatively modern idea.

It's something that sort of emerged in the late 19th, early 20th century. And so I think that the idea of the dad and the idea of fatherhood is constantly evolving. and I think we see it changing rapidly and sort of discourse around it transforming every day. Phil traces the beginning of the idea of the modern American dad to a specific period in our history. The dominance of this idea is a post-World War II thing, how much it was tied in with men's experience of returning from World War II, of the suburbs and all these sorts of things, and the central kind of media text that helped to synthesize. all of that stuff, was television, and specifically the domestic sitcom or the family sitcom. And so I started looking at, you know, all of these famous TV dads. And it really struck me that these television shows were both reflecting something about

American culture and also sort of providing a model within American culture that tracks pretty closely to a kind of timeline of the evolution of this figure. Can you run us through the greatest hits of TV dad? Sure. So I think for me, it's, I mean, there's a lot of places to start, but it starts for me with Ward Cleaver, I'll leave it to beaver, as the sort of archetypal 50s dad of suburbia. Come on, get you met. We'll get a little catch before supper. He works all day, comes home at night, but when he comes home, it's very clear that his role as a father, his role as a dad is of central importance to him. And it tells us a lot about the idea of fatherhood in the 50s as being an identity category for American. man, right? You feel alienated at work. You feel alienated in all these other sort of realms of your life, but as a father, that's who you can be. I think Archie Bunker on All in the Family is a really

good example of kind of generational clash. I am perfectly capable of getting a job. Wait a minute, wait a minute, hey, you got a kid to raise. Don't talk crazy. He's a sort of old guard, conservative, you know, blowhard who's got a feminist daughter and a son-in-law who's a campus activist and he's sort of negotiating or they're negotiating in their relationship to him, this difference in an understanding of not just what society is, but what like manhood is or what masculinity is supposed to be. I think then the next sort of big ones are Cliff Huxtable on the Cosby Show in the 1980s, a dual career couple who works from home sometimes, who's really involved in his kids live.

How do you expect to get into college with grades like this? Stephen Keaton on family ties. I'm a married man. I have three children. I know. You're a very sensitive caring father and husband. I think in lots of ways these are dads who are kind of the product of feminist reimaginings of what fatherhood or what partnership is in the contemporary life. They support their wives' careers. They take an active role in co-parenting their children. children, all of the things that have happened to our understanding of Bill Cosby in the years since then. Yeah. It's like, oh, yeah, the dad. And then it's all this baggage of like, oh, no, this is not

what I thought it was. It's startling because Cliff Hoxtable is such a good dad. And then I think when you get into the 21st century outside of these sort of domestic sitcoms, obviously there are people like Phil Dunphy on Modern Family. But I think to me, the biggest sort of TV dads of that 21st century are the anti-heroes of the sort of prestige dramas like Tony Soprano, Walter White, Don Draper, all of these protagonists, they're all dads. And the sort of center of their drama in lots of ways is how do you be a dad? What does fatherhood mean? What does it mean as a part of your identity, right? Tony Soprano is always dealing with this with his kids. And Don Draper is absent, but it's fraught. Walter White is trying to provide for his family.

which is this classic, you know, trope of fatherhood. And I think those dramas do a lot to take the sort of, you know, model citizens of the 20th century and sort of push on that on those archetypes and those icons. Who is the dad of 2025? If you had to pick a symbol from our pop culture moment right now, who's that dad? It's a hard question. And it's hard question, I think, because this feels like a particularly kind of fronial. brought year for the dad. I think that for a long time, the dad as an archetype is this kind of liberalizing figure.

Even when it applies to a conservative dad or politically conservative dad, it's about softening and it's about like a less hard edge. It's about moving away from a sort of idea of fatherhood as disciplinary or moral education and more about support and presence. But I also think that that model is under threat more than it has been in a while of this sort of like retro, you know, patriarchal vision of fatherhood, right, that you get out of the Manosphere or Andrew Tate or places like that, right, where fatherhood is about giving orders and fatherhood is about leadership and fatherhood is about sternness, right, rather than

flexibility adaptability. So it's a weird time for pop culture dads, I think. So you teach this course called Dad Culture Studies. Are there any ways your students are thinking about fatherhood that have surprised you, you know, there's all this research saying that nowadays, young men are kind of more so looking to be parents than young women. I'm curious what conversations you're hearing on campus. You know, one thing that is very true is that they have all, and these are, you know, largely Gen Z students, have all grown up in a time when dad is an adjective as much as a person, right? So, dad friend, dad bod, those sorts of things. They're also, I think, much less influenced by sitcoms.

They're less inundated with those sort of models of fatherhood that came out from the sort of the big, like, sitcom production factories. So I think it's a more malleable thing for them. But they're also just really invested in it as a concept, right? They want to think about it in their own lives. They want to think about fatherhood as something that they want to think about their own dads. They want to write about their own dads. I think that it is, it's very much a category that. in crisis. And, you know, whether that's like an emergency crisis or just a sort of, you know,

we're all thinking about this or we're all thinking about what it means in a contemporary context, they're going through it. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. Up next, the story of a growing group of men also going through it. And you probably haven't seen them in a sitcom. Single men choosing to become parents on their own. With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot track side. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime.

That's the powerful backing of Amex. Presale tickets for future events subject to availability and varied by race. Turns and conditions apply. Learn more at mx.ca slash yMex. Did you lock the front door? Check. Close the garage door? Yep.

Installed window sensors, smoke sensors, and HD cameras with night vision? No. And you set up credit card transaction alerts, a secure VPN for a private connection and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web? Uh, I'm looking into it. Stress less about security. Choose security solutions from TELUS for peace of mind at home and online.

Visit tellus.com slash total security. Faith Hill reports on singlehood and romance at the Atlantic, and she says she usually spends a lot of time thinking about single motherhood, women who decide to try parenthood on their own. But recently, she heard about another group, single fathers by choice. And then I started looking into it, and I found that this population, you know, it's small, but it seems to be growing. And that was really interesting to me. You hear so much today about men struggling and the kind of crisis of masculinity and men moving right word. And so I just wanted to know how this sort of fit into that larger context.

Yeah. Do we have any idea how many of these single fathers by choice there are? You know, it's really hard to find exact numbers. That said, when you talk to people in the fertility industry, in the adoption industry, people who study, you know, the sociology of families and how families are changing. People will tell you that we've sort of observed what really seems like a shift and a growing number of single dads by choice. It seems like since the pandemic, a lot of people are kind of reprioritizing, like thinking about what they want in life. And they're, you know, they came out of that time just really, like, wanting to make families before it was too late in a way that they hadn't had quite that urgency before. Who are the men choosing to do this? Is there like a typical profile?

A lot of these dads are men who never really set out to do this on their own. They just got to a certain point. Often I heard from doctors and from men themselves that tends to be like in their 40s where they realize they're still single and they start thinking like, oh gosh, I really, I want to have children. I've always wanted this. and what are my options going to be? And a lot of the men that I talk to happen to have, you know, a friend who was a single parent or someone who told them about this option and that kind of made it feel real. So I think otherwise, you know, a lot of men don't even consider this to really be a possibility. Yeah, you've spoken with some of these dads. I wonder what they told you about why they decided to start families on their own.

Yeah. You know, I talk to a lot of men about what was appealing to them about fatherhood in general. And it did seem to be the sort of source of meaning or purpose or like human connection for a lot of men. And we're in this sort of time period where I think like what it means to be a man culturally is shifting really rapidly. You know, there's more women than men going to college now. And a lot of. of jobs more and more requiring degrees. So men are facing increasing rates of joblessness. And the sort of assumed dominance and traditional behaviors of men are kind of getting questioned and pushed on. So I think for a lot of men, there's kind of this looming question of like, what is the right way to be a man today? And it did seem like, you know, for a lot of single men, this fatherhood would kind of

give them this sense of purpose that they had really been craving. For the men that moved on to do this, did it provide the answer? Like, did they get what they want out of it? I think they really did. I mean, of course there are challenges. Like, just being a single parent is hard for anyone, but there's sort of this unique challenge, I think, for some of the men who take this on where they have to grow into this role that no one really expected of them. You know, so much of the time men are not necessarily raised to be tender or to be prioritizing care or like listening to people or kind of having that emotionally caring side of parenthood that we typically think of. And it certainly wasn't beyond them, but they had to

sort of like get used to thinking of themselves that way. So, you know, I think often it's kind of this process not only of like taking on a ton of work and learning how to be a parent, but sort of internal reflection of like what does it mean for me to be a parent and, you know, how can I sort of embrace these parts of myself that are so, you know, typically feminized in the culture. Yeah, I think it's interesting that you say that. One of my colleagues, Rachel Cohen Booth, wrote this piece about the dearth of men working in child care settings. And some of the men who do this work in these settings say that people can be suspicious of them. They're worried like, hey, are you creepy?

Why are you doing women's work? And the same can go for dads. When I was taking my paternity leave with my now toddler, my father-in-law frequently referred to me as Mr. Mom. And what he was really doing, I think, was making a judgment about what he views as being effeminate if you're involved in taking care of every aspect of your kids' lives. And, you know, the fact that so many people think of child rearing as women's work, that could be its own conversation. Right. Absolutely. I think that's still very true. And I think we're in a kind of interesting transitional point in that sense. Like, just the fact that single fathers by choice are growing. population is testament to the fact that there is, you know, real interest, increasing interest in fatherhood. And you see that men are taking on more childcare labor. They're spending more time

on average with their children. And even, you know, there was a Pew survey, I believe, in 2023 that found that there was larger portion of young men who said that they wanted to become parents. Fifty-seven percent of men said they hope to have kids one day. And only 45 percent of of women said the same. So I think there is this shift where like women are realizing that they don't have to be fully defined by caretaking while men are sort of maybe having the opposite realization of like they can make caretaking central to their identity. But at the same time, we still have a long way to go in this sense. And I think that was underscored by just like hearing about how hard it is to become a single father by choice in the first place. And often that's

because people just kind of don't assume that men are natural parents. A lot of adoption agencies are kind of skeptical about the idea of single men adopting. They might not be actively recruiting men. And then in terms of just like, you know, the process of egg donation and surrogacy is so inaccessible for so many men still. And I talk to people at this organization called men having babies, where they really advocate for single men. who want to be fathers. And they do some financial support of men who are looking into this. And so they've been trying to push for that. And they really told me that it's just been an uphill battle trying to sort of raise awareness about, you know, single men who want to be dads. And they believe that

partly it's because we assume that all women want to have kids and that if they don't, they're deprived, which is obviously not always true. But then sort of the opposite case is true where we often assume that men who can't have children are not really deprived of anything. That if they have kids, it's sort of an extra treat. All right, Faith Hill. Thank you so much for explaining this to us. Thank you so much. So a lot of men are seeking to become dads now.

But what happens to the other parts of their lives once the kids get here? That's next. During the Volvo Fall Experience event, discover exceptional offers and thoughtful design that leaves plenty of room for autumn adventures. And see for yourself how Volvo's legendary safety brings peace of mind to every crisp morning commute. This September, lease a 2026 XE90 plug-in hybrid from $599 bi-weekly at 3.9. 9% during the Volvo Fall Experience event. Conditions supply, visit your local Volvo retailer

or go to explorevolvo.com. Summer's here, and you can now get almost anything you need for your sunny days delivered with Uber Eats. What do we mean by almost? Well, you can't get a well-groom lawn delivered, but you can get a chicken parmesan delivered. A cabana? That's a no, but a banana, that's a yes. A nice tan, sorry, nope.

But a box fan, happily yes. A day of sunshine? No. A box of fine wines? Yes. Uber Eats can definitely get you that. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol and select markets, product availability may vary by Regency app for details. We're back. It's Explained it to me.

We asked you to call in for this episode and tell us about the ups and downs of navigating fatherhood. And we got so many responses. A lot were about fatherhood and friendship. Being a father has changed my friendship. I'm the only father in my close friend group of long-standing male friends, and I think a lot about the trade-offs of the ease of being a single bachelor and being able to go to the bar whenever you want, versus me being on my hands and knees, picking up after my toddler after a meal.

When my first daughter was born, my wife signed me up for a new dad's meetup, and I somewhat begrudgingly went. After one meetup, it became clear that the organizer was using the opportunity to get us on his mailing list. Turns out he wanted to sell us ice bag. and breathwork classes for 40 bucks an hour. I guess I envy how organic things seem with the moms and how forced and transactional everything is with the men. Men are already having a hard time with social connections.

According to Gallup, men under 35 are the loneliest demographic in the U.S. How does fatherhood factor in? My name's Zach Rosen. I am a dad and a podcast maker. Zach co-hosts a podcast for Slate about modern parenting called Care and Feeding. Being a parent, especially a new parent, but I just think a parent in general is all hands on deck, whether you're partnering with someone or not. Like that first year when we had our first kid, like, I didn't have time to socialize. I wasn't in the dodgeball league that I used to be in. I wasn't going out for like a weekly meal like I used to.

So everything that I was doing before becoming a dad basically ceased to exist. and I think that that becomes entrenched and men might just be used to not hanging out. You know, I feel like so many of us like having an excuse. Being a parent is like a really good excuse. I'm sorry. Bedtime tonight was like really difficult. It took so much longer than expected. I can't meet up anymore.

Yeah, we've heard from listeners about how difficult it is to build and maintain friendships during fatherhood. You know, I've really kind of lost a lot of my friends. My wife is still to this day, my best friend and partner. in life. I always wanted to be a dad, so becoming a father was scary, but it was the natural thing I wanted to do to find some more purpose in my life. And it's been kind of crazy. I've lost a lot of friends. Some of my closest friendships are somewhat impacted. You know, I can't always go on a trip with my best friends. I can't always talk on the phone all the time. Why is this such a hard and important thing, I think, for men in particular? Is that a sentiment you hear from other dads? It's kind of

paradoxical that we're in a loneliness epidemic and yet there are like more opportunities than ever for men to get out and be with other men if they want to. I think it's more it's like about opting in and really kind of taking that first what will likely be uncomfortable step to go and hang out with men who you don't know. It does seem like there's kind of like two approaches that male socializing of a certain age takes. There's kind of like the organic. These have been my friends for a long time. And we remain friends and we have a lot of history to kind of build on. And then there's like the dads who I really admire. I don't have this kind of kind of social fortitude, but like the dads who are joining the

stroller groups or there's this group that I recently heard about called U.S. men's sheds. It's a nationwide nonprofit. I'm not making this up because, you know, there's like the idea that like women can sit face to face and have a conversation but men need a little activity yeah so men need to be like shoulder to shoulder and that's what this sheds organization is building upon there's more traditional men's groups where you get together and sit in a circle which i've done before and you know talk about what it's like to be a dad and be a man and like that's great and you can definitely find those in any major american city i would think as well as like insert whatever you're interested in dad's group you know like

pickleball dad's group, I'm pretty sure that exists where you live. So think about what you care about in addition to being a parent and you can plug in if you want to. I've had this same group of very dear guy friends since kindergarten. Now we're all 41. And I think that's unique, but I also think that there are, I've encountered other men who have this too. Like, they are still in very close relationship with people who they have been with for most of their lives. Like, my friends and I have a Discord group where we are talking, like, all day long. It's the best. Have you observed, like, when it comes to, like, networks, I think you and your partner or your friends and their partners, does it seem like, are the women, have they done a better job of maintaining their friendships and support networks?

Or does it seem sort of the same across the board? I think, no, I think women are better. My wife has 40,000 text threads going. Like, she is just constantly texting people, checking in on people, and she works a very busy job. So I think she's definitely better at that than me. Wasn't there, like, something that came out that, like, Robert Putnam, the guy who wrote Bowling Alone, like, the social science researcher, like, even his own wife makes their plans, which was, like, so ridiculous. Oh, my gosh, that's so funny. My wife is on several text groups with the other neighborhood moms, and the vast majority of social activities and playdates.

are planned by the mothers. I wonder how, how is your perception of both fatherhood and masculinity changed since you've become a parent? It's rare for me to have a day that I don't cry at this point. Like, I used to cry when I was a non-parent, but like I cry so much more now. Just tears of, oh, my God. Like, I just dropped my son off at school this morning, and he was having a really hard time at drop-offs, like, all of last year.

And this year he's been amazing at it and is, like, able to just take. kind of go in without clinging to me. But today he went in, but then like a second later, he like darted back out. And he said, can I just have five more hugs? Oh, wow. Oh, my heart. I know. It's like, I got to start my day like that. And I was just so, so then I cried. I'm like, oh my God, how lucky am I that I got to start my day like this? And there's just all of these tiny little moments. And I've just become, I've always been kind of a, what you might call a soft man. But like parenting has just made me even, even soft. after. And so I'm, I'm embracing it. And, yeah, a lot of crying. A lot of crying.

All right. Zach, thank you so much for joining us. Oh, thanks for having me. Thanks to all the dads who called in with their stories this week. Next week, we're doing a show on empathy. We typically think of putting ourselves in someone else's shoes as a positive thing. But is it always? Or maybe you're thinking of a time where you could have been more empathetic. Give us a call and tell us about it. 1-800-61845. You can also send a voice memo to AskVox at Vox.com.

This episode was produced by Devin Schwartz and it was edited by Megan Canaan. Melissa Hirsch fact-checked it and it was engineered by Adrienne Lilly. Our executive producer is Miranda Kennedy. Explain it to me as part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. And if you like the show, which I know you do, I have good news for you. Vox is having a sale on membership. If you sign up now, you'll get access to things like articles

and even get to listen to the show without ads. All for over 30% off right now. Just head over to Vox.com slash members. I'm your host, John Glenn Hill. Talk to you soon. Bye. Thank you.