Women have spent a lot of time preparing for a world that's different. The models keep shifting. You have a lot of men groping toward something else. In many cases, men feel they've been asked to change, yet prevented from doing so. Nowhere has this resonated so much as with fatherhood.
Companies say, sure, take time off.
Out of sentiments like this come efforts like the National Fatherhood Initiative, which has attracted a range of political supporters, from Vice President Al Gore to House Speaker Newt Gingrich. States like Massachusetts are following suit with commissions on fatherhood. Doubtless, many young mothers would have loved such networks of support. Those who study or counsel men look at the gender skirmishes and the gender divide in polls over issues like the Clinton sex scandals as signs that men are becoming more reactionary, that men and women are moving farther apart. You can't find a word that's too strong,'' he says.