Wait, What's A "Family Man?"

I have paid approximately 14 seconds of attention to whatever current Trump legal thing is going on, but I did see this column recently about Trump and the idea of “a family man.”

Basically, the op-ed there is discussing how Trump and his lawyers frame him as a “family man,” even though he was sleeping with porn stars while Melania was pregnant with Barron. Cool. I myself wouldn’t call that “a family man,” but I understand why his lawyers are trying to do that. I don’t receive Trump campaign emails (although weirdly I have gotten a few), but there’s apparently a series of emails now where he tells his supporters that the court system is forcing him to miss Barron’s HS graduation. He’s so upset about it, because, you see, he’s a family man. But when the judge let him off for that day, he decided to not only attend the graduation — but also go to Minnesota for a fundraiser. Ha. Family man.

The whole concept is really powerful for many reasons, not the least of which is that it’s probably the №1 thing you see on male headstones. Men I think are very concerned with notions of “legacy,” which then has downstream (20s and 30s) implications around “virility.” My sperm sucks so I think about this kind of shit periodically. I used to think about it essentially all the time, but eventually I had to free myself from that self-induced prison.

Now, anytime you talk about something like “a family man,” there are so many different aspects of that, and so many implications around it, it’s very hard to cover or condense in a quick Substack post. I will do my best.

Do I know people who claim to be “family men” and I know, for a fact from their mouth, that they’ve cheated on their wife? Absolutely. I know 3–4 guys like this.

Do I know people who claim to be “a family man” and constantly make their wife do everything and prioritize their own need for social life and drinking above their wife’s needs? Yes, I probably know close to 85 people like that. In fact, the depressing normalization of the mostly-useless husband is a whole genre of content in and of itself.

Now, do I know men who are legitimately “family men” and give everything for their partner and (if so blessed) kids? Yep. Actually I can think of 1 to 3 guys who fit this bill perfectly. I think broadly I know more guys who seem like derps who don’t help out at home, but that might be a function of (a) Texas and (b) infertility, which colors how you perceive other men. Sad, but true.

Would I say Trump himself is a family man? No. He has kids, and he brought kids into his businesses, and those kids became rich, and now those kids are part of the Ideology Wars themselves. Does it ever appear, from afar, that he really cares that much about any of his kids? No. However, I also am not with the Trump family behind closed doors. So I could be very wrong there.

It would be helpful at this moment to define the 35,000-foot view of “a family man.” I think, for most people, it would be:

• Wife
• 2–3+ kids
• Good job
• Provider
• Does stuff at home
• Family comes before work and selfish pursuits

I think that’s probably your baseline definition.

Most guys seem to hit the first two bullets, and maybe the third. (The third bullet, i.e. “good job,” is sadly going to become less and less of a reality in the next four decades.) The word “provider” is tricky because while I think women have woken up to men doing nothing at home and now expect more, a lot of women still think that “providing” two kids makes you a “provider,” even if you do nothing after that. I call this “HaSD,” or “Husband as Sperm Donor.”

“Does stuff at home” is vague, but by “stuff” I mean take care of sick kids, dishwasher, outside work, garbage, runs errands, raises children, supports wife, asks about her day, asks about her relationships, etc. Ideally, the man does all these things without expecting her to grind on his dick for 1 minute and 32 seconds later that day. However, “sex as obligation” in a marriage is a very true concept — it’s just something most people are not comfortable discussing.

“Family comes before _______” is a tough one. Ideally, family would come before anything. But, there are economic realities right now that are painful. If your boss is a bully in a suit, and you are the sole economic provider for a family, sometimes you need to say “How high, sir?” when your boss barks “Jump, maggot!” That’s true. You’d want to believe that any boss has enough self-awareness to say “No, go be with your family now” but most bosses have absolutely no self-awareness and arrived there on the train we call Peter Principle.

I think family and relationships should consistently come first, but I realize there are reasons why that can’t happen in different seasons of life.

One troubling thing about a lot of guys is that they like to say they prioritize family, but in reality they prioritize something else (usually a visceral reflection of success and/or work), and they get really defensive if you ever bring up this dichotomy. I used to see this therapist in 2021 and 2022. He was OK overall, and honestly probably part of the problem was that we became “friends” instead of “therapist/patient,” so that kinda backslid therein.

Well, when I saw this guy, I was doing IVF. It failed. One time I bemoaned to my therapist, “Why are there never guys in IVF waiting rooms? Why do husbands always make the woman go to appointments themselves?” He said: “Well, Ted, the guys need to be making money.” It felt incredibly reductive. Like, an IVF appointment takes 30–45 minutes. You can’t take that time away from work to support your wife in her quest for motherhood? But Mr. Therapist Man said the quiet part out loud: a lot of times, life to guys is about hitting these success markers, many of which are tied to work. It’s hard to fully justify yourself as a “family man” in such a context.

So, I think the “family man” construct is similar to the Supreme Court and pornography: you know it when you see it.

What might you add?