The Dark Side of Fatherhood

"I stay late at work just to postpone coming home to a screeching wife and kid. I don't know which one is worse. I have no freedom. I can't go back to college. I can't travel. I feel as though I'm wearing a ball and chain. If I had one wish, it would be to go back and get a vasectomy before I met my wife."

So reads on of the many entries on the now defunct website, "True Dad Confessions". For some people, this may not be too shocking.  We hear about deadbeat dads all the time. However, many of the guys on the website were not deadbeats in any way. They're your average married Joes, doing exactly what society expects of them. They're fulfilling their obligations to carry on the family name, give their parents grandchildren, and hopefully raising productive citizens.

And not surprisingly, many of them HATE it.

They hate the drudgery, the hum-drum mediocrity of day to day living, sharing space with small people who sometimes can't do much but cry and soil their diapers. A lot of men don't even LIKE children, or even want them.Proclaims a good friend, "Babies are disgusting! I'll never have any of of those." And another man on "Confessions" echoes this sentiment:

"Babies are flat-out boring. Maybe when it's old enough to have some kind of a personality, I will love it. But now? Eh. All it does is lie there, shit its pants, cry, eat and sleep."

Another dreaded thing for men is the way their wives change when Baby makes three. Sometime the fun-loving free-spirit they married because a neurotic mess. She transforms into a woman who suddenly cares about Mommy and Me yoga, Blue's Clues, Kindermusik and to breastfeed or not to breastfeed.  She becomes so enthralled with motherhood that anything that isn't child-shaped suddenly doesn't matter, and her husband treated like the hired help.Guys will do anything to make their wife happy, even if it makes them unhappy in the process. After all, love involves sacrifice and compromise... right?

Men are in a pretty awkward position in this regard. While he can choose to wear a condom (or not) ultimately he is not the one who carries the baby, and he has little say in what the woman chooses to do with her body. He is often forced to go with whatever his wife decides. He may feel like he was "tricked" into parenthood and feel resentful, maybe even bitter. Such as this fellow:

"I wish I'd never let her talk me into having kids. I didn't want them. And now that we do, we can't go back to the way things were. Things were perfect before. Don't get me wrong, I do love them and would do anything for them. It's just life was so much better before. We're living paycheck to paycheck because she quit work to be a stay at home mom and we never get to do anything fun. It's just kids, kids, kids. I'd switch places with my childless buddies any day."

You may wonder, if so many men hate fatherhood so much, why do they do it? Why even bother? The answer's easy. They feel like they don't have a choice! Turn on the television or watch a movie sometime. How many long-term, happy single men do you see? Probably few, if any. Unmarried men are seen as lazy, immature, irresponsible and selfish. Guys have it drilled into them their whole lives that in order to be a grown up, they must marry and have kids. They're never even told that there's an option to stay single (or if they do choose to marry, not have children). Once a man realises what he's gotten himself into, it's too late. He can't just leave his wife and children or he'll look like a deadbeat, It's a vicious circle.

True Dad Confessions ia archived, and the posts I've included here are a small sampling. I hope that men who are on the fence would take a look and see what some other dads have to say. Men should realise that there is a choice and they don't have to live their lives being dictated by societal norms. Travel, get a hobby, learn a language, do something with your life! Let these confessions be a reminder that parenthood isn't for everyone.