Everyone agrees that the family is a complex issue and most agree on the three things which threaten its existence. Clare Hershman, an Islington counsellor, reports that her practice has been swamped by men in their late thirties or early forties trying to keep their girlfriends without having children. They've got no career security, they saw their fathers lose their jobs in the recession or got into negative equity in their first home, they're looking at a world economic crisis and they've got no confidence that they can support a family financially. Now they fear that getting married will force them to make their girlfriends as miserable as their mothers were. Relate, now seeing more and more unmarried couples terrified of taking the plunge, reports that these feelings are not unique to Islington man.
Men are increasingly unable to make the transition from lad to dad.
Instead, men seem able to think of children only in terms of money. Men think they have nothing to offer their families except their earning capacity. This is after a decade in which fatherhood has been an obsession throughout Anglo-American culture, from literary fiction to rap songs. In the role-model industry, Bill Cosby, Bruce Willis and Robin Williams have made careers of acting the dream dad, but it seems that men have screened out the message. Before we decide we're looking at an ineradicable gender trait, notice what little account is taken of fatherhood outside the dream factories.