Practical advice for modern dads

Sometimes about really big things, but most times, the little mysteries are the best.

“Our lost and found is currently filled with pants. I don't know what I've never seen this happen.”

This is true. Mysteries have every size each week, this American life, wherever you get your podcasts. This is NPR's LifeKit. I'm Mary El Sigatra. LifeKit reporter Andy Tagle. Hi. Hi, Mary El good morning. One of your favorite topics I feel like on LifeKit is the mental load. What does it mean?

The mental load. The mental load is so many things. It's sometimes called invisible

labor. It's all that behind the scenes, thinking, planning, organizing, executing.

It's everything it takes to keep a household running. And oftentimes, it falls on one person more than the other. Yeah, I feel like when we talk about the mental load, we're often

“talking about women and moms. Why is that? Because, you know, in aggregate, that's what the”

data shows. You know, in most heterosexual relationships, it's the female that takes on the line share of the work. Because, you know, socialization. Even when both partners are working, even when both partners make the same amount of money, that's not the truth of every individual relationship or every individual family. I know lots of super involved ads. I dad is one of them. I husband is one of them. I know dad's who are the primary

parent. But in aggregate, overall, that's what the data shows. Yeah, the data doesn't tell the whole picture. And I guess that is something that you heard after you did your last episode on the mental load you heard from a bunch of dads, right? Yeah. So, a big inspiration for today's episode is a recent story we did. That wasn't exclusively for women and moms, but because it was about the mental load, a lot of the language was directed toward only them.

And some of the examples were gendered. So, I heard from a lot of men and husbands and fathers being like, hey, you know, we want to be a part of this conversation. They felt, you know, excluded. They said, you know, like, we are really involved too. You know, we are here, we contribute, what gives. And I was like, fair. And, you know, the research backs these guys up, the Windsor changing. One recent study found that American dads are spending more time on household

and child-rearing activities than in the previous two decades. So, this is a male bag episode, a father's day, male bag. Who are your experts? One of them is Kevin McGuire. So, he's consultant and author of a new book, The New Fatherhood, which is also the name of his very popular newsletter and community about all things fatherhood. There is just this huge scope for really kind of, the dads who embrace fatherhood. It's almost that maxing, right? It's really seek to get the,

the very most that they can get out of their relationships with their children. And then our other expert is David Default. He's a clinical psychologist and also a friend of the pod.

“I think that it's important for us to sort of, you know, give men credit because men are showing”

up more. I think the part of that is because while we have so much longer to go, we are beginning to develop the emotional strength to, you know, express ourselves better so that we know how to show up better. There is no shortage of things to talk about. So, that's what we have for you for this episode. Lots of practical advice for modern dads, things like anger and how to express it in a healthy way, friendship and we're to find it and how to navigate high stress parenting situations

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First up, we've got a question surrounding gender roles. Hi, life kit friends. This is

rock-ter-run from St. Louis. I'm a single dad racing a five-year-old daughter and I find myself wrestling with questions about what should I teach her about men. On one hand, I see the real dangers women face stories of harassment and assault are everywhere. What should I be teaching her so she can feel safe, strong and respected without growing up, seeing every man that's a danger? I thought that was an excellent question. I know that as a mother to a son, this is something

I struggle with. I wonder if you have any advice for a listener. That's a very courageous question.

“I applaud you 100% for the question. I think the most important thing that we can do for our”

daughter is to be that present example. Where I am now my daughter is 14. I think for me,

it's making sure that she knows that what a man provides should look safe. It should look steady and that she's protected, that she's loved. It's also about how that person shows up to handle your emotions, to handle the narrative concerns that come to you. For me, I think that one of the things that was most challenging was when my daughter hit puberty. I noticed that I started to retreat because things got a little awkward and I don't understand. For this gentleman, that's a

single father. I would just say that when that does come, make sure that you stay engaged, make sure that you stay attentive, that you don't get uncomfortable when things do change, but you stay that present help to her. I love that David. It really feels like as a father of a daughter who's on the verge of entering her teenagers, really keeping those channels of communication open and making her feel safe and secure, that she can come to me with anything. It's not just

“go to your mom and I think that's one of the big shifts that we've seen in fatherhood is really”

the idea that more men are really taking responsibility, not just for the things that fatherhood has traditionally been known for, but the emotional side of things as well. Just to address the question, I think this is one of the biggest things that we're all trying to navigate as parents today, which is, how do we raise our children to be aware of what is going on in the world without being terrified of it? You know, it could be the dangers that a young woman will face from other

men. It could be the kind of the climate crisis, it could be political. What I often think about when I think about my daughter is just like, how do I allow her to keep that curiosity and excitement that she has about the world and not to dampen that and the job that we do as parents is to try and help shepherd them through that path. Okay, moving on to our next question. It seems like there are an infinite number of resources for mommy-meat-up groups,

but not a ton of options for fathers. I'd like to have more of a support group the way that my wife does, specifically something separate from just the partners of her friends. But I don't really know what to do about it when I barely have enough time and energy in the day to spend with my family. Yeah, I mean, we don't prioritize friendships and connections. It feels like a heavy load. Like, we feel that we need to be invited to these things.

When, like, everyone is crying out like there's so many men are yearning for any kind of community and all it takes is just to start something up. I host a meet-up for dads. It's on the

third Wednesday of the month and I made it as low stakes as possible. I said, I am going to go to

this bar. I'm going to bring a book. If anyone joins me, I would rather talk to you than read the book, but if nobody turns up, it's fine. And regularly now there's there's 20 of us that have connected to each other over this idea of a deeper, more richer sense of what fatherhood could look like.

“I think even also how we form friendships are different, which I think Kevin mentioned. Women, of course,”

their friendships are often face-to-face men. We're more so shoulder to shoulder. We have to be doing something. There has to be some activity, you know, a basketball run or a project or a group or something like that or even as Kevin said, you know, saying I'm going to meet in this bar and what is the purpose of meeting in the bar? Not to talk about this particular topic, but we're going to have some beers and whatever comes up comes up. And that's perfectly fine.

We find connection not by happenstance anymore, especially when you get older. It has to be some

defend and put some structure around to say, you know what? This is what I do every Thursday

with this group of people. And people are looking for that excuse to have these connections. When I talk to younger dads, there is a real drive to connect together in more meaningful ways,

“even if that means confronting feelings. You know, I think all these men circles that are starting”

to become more and more popular now. You know, I've been, I've run a few of them myself, both online and in person. And they are very much not-shoulders to shoulder by definition. You know, I think this idea of men becoming more emotionally intelligent, emotionally resilience, and finding the space to do it with other men who are trying to do that work, too. I think is

is one of the biggest shifts that I've seen in Fatherhood for this generation.

So, what are you waiting for? Take a quick break with us and text that dad found him daycare to schedule a meet-up for a beer or have had session. Meet-up to talk about this podcast. Let me come back. We'll talk about working through anger, dealing with parenting stress in your relationship, and managing the mental load. For instant clarity on world events, in just five minutes, listen to NPR News Now,

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News Now. Listen, on the NPR app or wherever you get podcasts.

On the next through line from NPR, the story of the world cup, and what happened when a tournament imagined to promote peace, landed in a country primed for war. There's all these reasons why neighbouring countries will be right from this manifest, particularly in football. Listen in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. The next topic I have for you is anger. I'm thinking about how a lot of the dads in my circle

are determined to be better emotional role models for their kids, but were raised by fathers who either didn't talk about their feelings or had that, I'll give you something to cry about attitude. Can we talk a little about why it can be so much more difficult for men to express their feelings, generally, and towards their kids specifically? I don't think that we were taught how. We don't have a good example to society tells us,

you know, men don't cry, men not to be strong, suck it up, whatever it is that people say. The thing is when we don't have the emotional vocabulary to express how we're feeling instead, it comes out of negative behavior. You know, I don't know who said it, but someone once said you act out what you won't talk out of cry out. And so it comes out instead in negative behavior

“and pinned up emotions. And so I think it's important for men to go through the process of”

developing the emotional vocabulary so they can speak to how they feel so that they can talk honestly to their children so that there's not like things like displacement happening so because I can't tell the boss how I really feel. I'm going to come home and I'm going to take that out on you or I'm short with you because I'm upset over here. I'm not processing how I'm feeling over here and that we could do that professionally and we also can do that on our own.

You know, for me, I'm one of those, I don't get angry kind of guys. It's like, I don't get angry and it was I was almost boasting to my therapist and saying, hey, I only think I lost my temper like five times in the last ten years and she said, well, what if your kid came in and intentionally just smashed something of yours that you cared about? And I said, well, I think I would just stand up and walk away and she said, well, you know, why don't you tell them that you're

feeling angry? So for me, it's been a real process of learning to allow myself to be angry

“in a weird way. When a situation arises in the house and I think is anger a proportional response”

right now? It's a really interesting inverse, I think of what David was saying earlier. David, I wonder if you could tell us what does what does good anger, what does healthy anger look like? I say to my clients all the time, there's an if you could make an emotion even if it's anxiety, if you could make it useful, you can keep it. Anger is a natural human response when lines have been crossed. The only question is what

do I then do with it? So if I can get it targeted and if I can aim my anger at the right place

relationships as opposed to it coming out with cynicism, with disrespect or even aggression,

“then I can keep it then it's been official. So I grow from it as opposed to blowing up from it.”

Yeah, or all David or as we all too often do is turn the anger in on ourselves. We can't find a good place for it. That's where guilt in shame then comes in. You know where we start to get angry and ourselves. So anger doesn't have to be a bad thing if you can understand it and use it right. You're pulling it in the right direction. Okay, the last question I bring you is from right here at home in San Diego. I asked my husband, a modern dad, what he might need some help with. His

name is Andres Alvacartinus. He gave it a think and he came back with a question about dealing with

stressful parenting situations with your partner. Here he is. Our son has been waking up all

hours of night screaming for his mom even though just a few months back he was able to self-smooth and put himself back down. We have a general game plan but he keeps waking up with different months and needs and because we sometimes add to the chaos by disagreeing. So do you all have any strategies on how to quickly get on the same page with your partner when it's necessary to improvise? Well, first and day like to go to his month, props for the question first up. On the second

one, when I was listening to it, my mind immediately went back to my wedding day actually and just as we were leaving, there was this old couple that came up to us just as we were getting in the car and I remember it so vividly and they walked up to us and they smiled and the husband said, hey, you're going to have some good times, you're going to have some bad times, but no matter what

“happens, remember this, you're on the same team and I think this so often with parenting which is”

like how do you both put yourselves on one side of the table and put the problem on the other,

whether the problem is the mental load, whether the problem is a child that can't sleep

you know, children not sleeping is a particular flavor of problem because everything is exacerbated when we haven't had our seven hours. It's so much worse and we're snappy with each other and that kind of resent and build. I did this last night and I was up three night and all these things and I think just to get to the place where you go, hey, you know what we're on the same side here is the best way that we can support each other to be able to get there. But you know, I feel for you.

Very courageous question, especially for your husband to ask it in your own workplace. Takes courage, right? As Kevin said, it will get better, okay? But while you're in the process of getting better, I want you to understand that your child even taking you all through this level of conflict is a gift that he's giving you because oftentimes the real argument that we have when we're raising children is not about the child. It's really about two childhoods colliding.

Your childhood and his childhood, you know, we all walk into marriage, caring our own script from our own family of origin and how things should be done and we either walk in enacting it or we walk in rebellion against it. And so we're not really fighting or navigating, you know, bedtime strategies, we're really fighting against two histories and to say it plainly, you know, we're parenting our own wounds. I want you all to see this as a gift because it's going to

allow you to talk through some of your histories and some of your stuff that you're bringing into the marriage that is now showing up differently because now this human is involved. That was a good answer. I felt that one too. I really felt that one. Can I have for one thing that I wanted one thing I heard from a few years ago and I really liked this is they said, you know, rather than kind of like decide who does what. They gave them

self titles. So one parent was secretary for education. So they looked after everything to do with school. And one, one parent was secretary of finance. A secretary of commerce is the person who does all the shopping. So they gave themselves these titles. So if there is kind of like secretary of bed times, and you just decide like, hey, you know what, I'm secretary of bed times. I'm the kind of

“key decision maker as it comes to this. And I think like even even that language, it just makes”

it a little bit playful and it kind of takes this thing out of it a little bit, but it does provide like this this things kind of roles and responsibilities across different aspects of the house. Oh, co-opting immediately. That's what we're doing. That's what we're doing tonight. Absolutely. That was good. All right, let's recap what we talked about. Being a dad today can be a bit of a mixed back. An increasing number of husbands and fathers enjoy being more involved in the home

and hard to manage when you have your role models to look to and less built in community

“around the burden of those responsibilities. The more we continue to talk about these dynamics”

and our desire for them to change, the better off we'll all be. So if you're feeling starved for authentic connection or seeking to expand your emotional vocabulary,

know that you are not the only dad by far. The people are out there and they want to talk to you

too. One place to start, Kevin created viral media groups in a bunch of different cities through

“his online community modern fatherhood. Finally, remember to take each day at a time. We all”

bring our own scripts from our past, our families, our parents, our dads into our own parenting

styles. And then we either enact them or push against them. So good on you for taking the time

to have a thing today about which path you're taking. That was life kit reporter Andy Tagle talking with David Defoe and Kevin McGuire. Happy father's day and special thanks to Dad's robbed it on, Andres, Alba, Cardenas, and Josh Babin for contributing their thoughts and questions to this story. And to all the husbands and dads who wrote to us about the mental load, we'd love to hear your thoughts on the episode too. This episode of Life Kit was produced by

Sylvie Douglas. It was edited by Brent Bachman. Our digital editor is Malica Greb, and our visuals editor is CJ Rekalan. Meghan Kane is our senior supervising editor and Lauren Gonzales is our executive producer. Our production team also includes Claire Marie Schneider and Margaret Sereno. Engineering support comes from Peter Elena. I'm Mary El Sigadra. Thanks for listening. The fatal shooting of a teenager at a protest in Seattle has gone unsolved for six years.

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