The Ultimate In Male Leverage
I used to “ruck” (walking with a weighted backpack) with this really nice dude from the South, by way of NYC, who eventually ended up in Texas re: falling in love. Him and his wife had three kids. In a tale as old as time, he would tell me often his mother-in-law hated him in the early days — when the couple met, he was bartending, and she thought that was beneath her daughter — and once the first kid arrived, the mother-in-law liked him a bit more. By the second kid, it increased more, and by the third — because now the MIL had three little ones to dote on — my buddy would quote the semi-famous Tom Hanks movie and say, “I’m the captain now.”
This is a very common situation in modern times, and by “modern times,” I mean “This has been a common situation for most of human history.” There is some nuance to this whole discussion, but not much. It’s pretty basic to understand: most people don’t want to conceptualize their daughter having sex, because that’s a bit uhhhh not good, but they do like the idea of grandchildren and getting another chance at having babies around while doing less work in the process.
At the same time, I could argue that masculinity has shifted in the last 20 years, and the definitions around it are unclear. #MeToo changed a lot of stuff, and now we have constant dialogues about how men are lost, men are behind, young men have never had a face-to-face conversation with a woman at age 25, etc, etc.
In reality, some of that is true. What’s truer, at least to me, is that standard definitions of masculinity shifted, or were often framed on platforms as “toxic,” and men were left with confusion about what their role is.
A lot of men were comfortable with the provider and sire-the-children role, but now they’re expected to do that and also be emotional, be vulnerable, find their own friends, “believe all women,” etc. Men are honestly often not capable of hitting all these targets, so they default to the target they understand most: which is getting laid and, in the process of a (potentially) committed relationship, creating children through that getting laid process.
We’ve framed up the “yin-yang” of masculinity as purpose vs. respect. Creating kids for a woman gives you both of those.
Very few other things check both boxes. If a man makes big money, there’s no guarantee he is respected across the board, especially at home. I’ve had one friend recently tell me that he’s “just a f*cking ATM” for his family. Making money also has no real tie to purpose, even if we’ve claimed for decades that it does (especially in America).
The siring children piece is bigger, though. It gives you some purpose (new life), some respect (this is often what the woman wanted from you in the first place), and leverage with your in-laws, who potentially never liked you that much and thought their daughter could do better — but once 2–3 kids are in play and they’re distracted and happy with bouncing bundles of joy, you’re the captain now.
If you think this is all bullshit, let's think about this: how many women in true crime sagas of late have continued to produce children with men who eventually go on to kill them?
Most women are smart enough to realize “This isn’t a good dude overall” either around Kid №1 or even before Kid №1. And yet, they have three kids with the dude — and said dude eventually murders them. Is that simply because women want to be moms due to generalized social conditioning, and they will continue to procreate with horrible guys in order to be more of a mom? Or is it because those horrible guys tell them it will get better? Or a mix of both?
I obviously have very specific triggers about all this because of my own situation, but the more I look around, I see a lot of relationships where the husband is essentially a sperm donor, and the wife doesn’t really like the husband, but is pleased with what she got out of him.
For reference from actual married women, look at some of the pull quotes in this article.
So of course young men and middle-aged men are somewhat confused about their role and where masculinity is headed. There’s not really a clear role for a man right now, TBH.
The main way a guy gets leverage in Modernity is by siring children. Even a very rich guy with no kids has a small to medium stigma against him. But a generalized loser, a two-pop huckster who makes decent money selling GMC trucks, will still find some “purpose” or “respect” or idea about their role in the masculine universe, if they create kids for themselves and a woman. That's the main thing men still have left in the “No More Men” neoliberal feminism discussions: most women who want babies (a declining number, apparently) would rather have those babies with a man as opposed to a sperm bank or whatnot.
This all makes the infertility on my end hurt more, which sucks, and sometimes causes me to utterly hate my life. But I also think it needs to be stated that for a lot of men, creating children is the only real role they can play for any vague notion of relevance.
Your take?