Dads rock

During the Q&A portion of a Jordan Peterson lecture I recently attended, host Konstantin Kisin presented a question from the audience: “My son was just born. How do I know how to be a father if I didn’t have a father? What makes a great father?”

I’ve been thinking about that question ever since. As someone who spends entirely too much time online viewing the virtual culture wars play out on X/Twitter, I’ve noticed no one has more to say about relationships and raising children than the unmarried, childless peanut gallery that occupies the “manosphere.”

Like every online genre, the loose collection of blogs, podcasts, forums and websites that constitute the manosphere exist on a spectrum. The content ranges from healthy — harmless ideals about eating and working out and promoting positive examples of masculinity — to toxic — hating women and blaming all societal ills on feminism and whining like little bitches about things like the matriarchal “Longhouse” we allegedly all live in now, run by hectoring old women with dried-up ovaries.

Probably the most notorious of these toxic males is Andrew Tate. He’s often described by the media as a “self-proclaimed misogynist,” although I have never seen the source where he made that claim and I have too much self-respect to go digging through hours of shirtless podcasting to find it. I will say he speaks and behaves exactly like the kind of guy who would say that.

Tate looks like the kind of guy you’d see getting bottle service surrounded by a harem of scantily clad women in some roped-off part of TAO Nightclub in Las Vegas. A human penis wearing Louis Vuitton Attitude sunglasses. I can smell his cologne from here. It’s called “Guard Your Drink.” He looks like the kind of guy who might be charged with human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women — surprise, surprise, he is. Tate and his brother are currently awaiting their upcoming trial in Romania.

Tate says his setbacks are all a conspiracy by the “Matrix,” a shadowy world-control group, to silence him or something. Young men all over the world revere him because, much like them, he has the maturity of a pubescent tween and fans the fire of their persecution complex about why girls don’t like them. He presents masculinity not as a mature, confident man would — he thinks of masculinity after the fashion of an adolescent with an unformed brain and a porn addiction. Flaunting wealth. Degrading women.

The first time I ever heard the name Andrew Tate was when my husband, who is a therapist, came home and asked me if I knew of him. He was working with teens at the time and apparently the girls complained that the boys their age were “assholes” because they all worshipped at the altar of Andrew Tate. I wonder what their fathers are like.

Fatherhood has changed a lot in just one generation. All the men I know — my brother, stepbrothers, cousins, friends — are extremely hands-on fathers. They’re much more hands-on than my father and his contemporary boomers were. They cook. They pack lunches. They change diapers. They put the kids down for naps and take them to activities. As more women have entered the work force, there are more stay-at-home-dads than ever before. As life becomes more ridiculously expensive and both parents have to work, they share the duties at home. Cooking. Cleaning. Child-rearing. In my lifetime, this is truly progress.

My husband is an incredible father. As I’m currently the breadwinner while he builds his therapy practice, he is the primary care provider for our daughter. He’s present. He’s patient. He’s our rock. He runs the house and his business. He takes care of the lawn and the cars and the guns. He’s masculine but also a sensitive and hugely lovable dork.

Pay attention to what the manosphere has to say about men like my husband and so many of the other husbands I know. They think of him as somehow less than a man. They’d refer to him as a “cuck” for marrying a woman with a “body count,” for taking on some of the household duties, for doing the laundry (which is ironic since most of them still probably have their mom doing their laundry for them).

I asked my husband if there are any males in media he feels represent him. He said, “I don’t care about being represented, I’ve never even thought about this for one second.” When I presented the question to my X audience, hundreds of people responded “Joe Rogan,” which explains a lot about his popularity. Joe is a guy who likes hunting and UFC fighting and shooting the shit — but he also talks about being a father and loving his wife. Mike Rowe was another. Bluey’s dad, Bandit. These are good examples of men and fathers. Not a single person has yet said Andrew Tate.

When Jordan Peterson was asked about fatherhood at that lecture, his answer was characteristically long-winded. He boiled it down to, “Don’t lie” and later, “Be the kind of father you wanted.” One sure sign of a great father: if he’s even aware of him at all, he’s unimpressed by Andrew Tate.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s June 2024 World edition.