STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
This Father's Day weekend, fathers can reflect on how we do the job. Writer Augustine Sedgewick studied fathers in history, like England's Henry VIII, who went to extremes to father a male heir. Or Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, who fathered children both free and enslaved. Sedgewick says the idea of fathers as providers or the men in charge has changed over time. His book is "Fatherhood," and I asked what got him thinking about it.
AUGUSTINE SEDGEWICK: My father was just so present. All of my life, he was solid and forthright and a source of really good advice and, you know, crisp 20s when needed.
INSKEEP: Oh.
SEDGEWICK: And right not long before my own son was born, my father had a stroke that really changed his personality. And my son was born in the summer of 2017, which was kind of a tough moment for men and fatherhood. I mean, when we got to the hospital, Bill Cosby's mistrial was on every TV in the maternity ward.
INSKEEP: Wow.
SEDGEWICK: You know, America's dad. But not long before that, you know, Trump had been inaugurated. And he had boasted of never having changed a diaper but also how much he loved it when his adult daughter called him Daddy. And so I couldn't help thinking at that moment that the fathers I had grown up with no longer existed in the way that I had known them. And I wanted to find a way to care for my son that felt good and sustainable for both of us. You know, that's not really the type of question that is addressed by parenting books, even the most helpful ones.
INSKEEP: You describe a number of figures in history, famous figures in history, and talk about them in terms of fatherhood. I'd never thought of Aristotle or Plato as fathers. What's going on there?
SEDGEWICK: At a moment of crisis for Athens and its democracy, Plato and Aristotle had what I think is probably the first recorded debate about what it means to be a father. So both of them agreed that because these crises were plaguing Athens, fatherhood needed to be redefined. Plato, in "The Republic," proposed a kind of thought experiment where the patriarchal family would be abolished and everyone would come to think of themselves as one family the size of the state. His student, Aristotle, profoundly disagreed, and he thought fatherhood needed to be strengthened by policies that would help fathers identify with their children and kind of reclaim their positions of power and authority both in the household and beyond it.
INSKEEP: I'm interested in hearing you talk because this is one of many examples in the book where we're talking about a family, a family unit. But we end up also talking about the state or the country, the organization of the whole society.
SEDGEWICK: Across time, fatherhood has been created as this kind of godlike paternal mandate to protect and provide. What's interesting about that is that men, of course, are not gods. Therefore, men, time and time again, find themselves in crises of masculinity, of fatherhood because they have defined those ideas in terms that are effectively impossible to completely guarantee and fulfill.
INSKEEP: What was the common definition of fatherhood in the United States in the mid-20th century, say? A couple generations ago.
SEDGEWICK: In the Cold War context, the idea of fatherhood shifts. This is the moment when the dad emerges on the scene. And the dad is a really novel figure who is not only a protector and a provider but also a friend, someone who comes home after work and plays with his kids and goes to Little League and, you know, is a force for kind of positivity and happiness in the household. But it also kind of adds to the, I want to say, impossible standards that have been built into this idea of fatherhood for reasons that are related to the family but also related to society and the state more generally.
INSKEEP: I'm interested in hearing you say that because it's often said that women face impossible standards and conflicting demands of work and home and everything else. You're telling me that men do, that fathers do.
SEDGEWICK: Absolutely. I think women also do - they're just much better at talking about it. I mean, the founders of second-wave feminism, especially Simone de Beauvoir, were very clear about the idea that motherhood and womanhood had been, quote-unquote, "man-made" - that they had been invented, they had changed over time and they had constrained women in certain ways. I think men would make their lives better if we could understand that fatherhood had been invented, and that it had changed over time and that it could be remade again. I think men would do themselves a favor. But men have been much slower to kind of pick up the thread of that inquiry and to look at, well, where did this idea come from? How has it changed? And how might its history help us understand where we could go next?
INSKEEP: Has your exploration of all that history changed your day-to-day fathering?
SEDGEWICK: I certainly started the book because I wanted to find a way to connect with my father, and I wanted to find a way to care for my son, that felt good to us. I was finishing the book - I actually felt frustrated that I hadn't found what I was looking for. And around that time, I was walking with my son, I thought for the first time to ask him what he thought a father should be. And without missing a beat, he told me that a father should be funny and good at hugging. And I have to be honest with you, at first, I was disappointed by that answer, too, because...
INSKEEP: What do you mean too? I love this answer. Please, continue.
SEDGEWICK: I thought he was talking about his mother, who is genuinely both of those things. And it was only after thinking about it for, I'm embarrassed to say, a couple weeks did I realized that I just hadn't learned to think of myself as a man and as a father in those terms.
INSKEEP: You studied Sigmund Freud and Henry VIII, and what you really needed to be doing was reading books of knock-knock jokes.
SEDGEWICK: You know, father doesn't always know best. Father should maybe just listen...
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
SEDGEWICK: ...To...
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
SEDGEWICK: Yeah.
INSKEEP: (Laughter) Just listen to the kids, see what comes out. They're not always right, but they're ruthlessly honest. That's for sure.
SEDGEWICK: Listen to what the people you love are asking you to do and allow yourself to be loved in that way. I think that'd be really transformative for me and for men more generally.
INSKEEP: Augustine Sedgewick is the author of "Fatherhood: A History Of Love And Power." Thanks so much.
SEDGEWICK: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF HNNY'S "FRANKFURT") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
