There’s this moment that happens when you’re sitting in a room full of strangers, and someone says something that makes raise your eye brows, not because it’s wrong, but because it’s uncomfortably right. I had one of those moments recently, listening to a talk about masculinity.
The presenter walked us through all these socially crafted roles we’ve assigned to men: the Hero, the Father, the Leader, the Decision Maker, Dead Beat Dad. Each one carrying its own weight, its own expectations, its own quiet pressure. But then he dropped something that made me shift in my seat.
When fathers are expected to “show up,” it usually means more time away from home, chasing promotions, working overtime, bringing home the bacon. When mothers are expected to “show up,” it’s about being present at home ,bedtime stories, scraped knees, parent-teacher conferences. Two different definitions of presence. Two different ways of saying “I love you.”
I thought about my own father. The man who seemed to always be somewhere else. Business trips. Late nights at the office. Late nights at home. Young me didn’t get it. Young me just thought, what a douche bag that doesn’t get involved in my life. Why can’t he be more like Mom?
Boy oh boy, was I wrong.
He wasn’t absent. He was building. Brick by brick, hour by hour, he was constructing something I couldn’t see yet, a foundation that would eventually hold up my entire life. A better education. Opportunities he never had. Choices that felt like freedom because someone else had already paid the price for them; Its privilege to write such a sentence.
And now? Now I’m doing the exact same thing. Working all the time, convinced that this is how I secure a better life for my kids. The ironic hey.
But here’s what’s been eating at me: Is this really what fatherhood is? Just sacrifice measured in invoices and exhaustion? Or is that just the part we’ve been sold because it’s easier to measure than the messy, intangible stuff?
The talk didn’t just stop at work-life dynamics. The presenter pushed further into how important fathers actually are. And I’m going to be honest, uncomfortably honest, I’ve always held this belief that mothers are more important than fathers. I need to unpack that more, figure out where that programming came from. Maybe it’s cultural. Maybe it’s personal. Maybe it’s just wrong.
Because recently, I’ve met fathers who are raising their kids full-time. Not because the mothers were unavailable or had passed away. But because when the kids got old enough to choose, they chose Dad. They chose him.
That stopped me cold.
These weren’t deadbeat dads who suddenly got their act together. These were men who’d been there all along, in ways I hadn’t noticed or valued. And their children, teenagers, young adults, looked at them with something I can only describe as quiet respect. The kind you don’t perform for anyone. The kind that lives in your chest.
It made me reconsider everything. What does it actually mean to be a father? What are the parts of it we celebrate versus the parts we quietly dismiss? And more uncomfortably: What am I missing with my own kids while I’m busy “providing”?
I don’t have those answers yet. I’m not even sure I’m asking the right questions. But I do know this fatherhood isn’t one-dimensional. It’s not just the provider or the protector or the play-wrestler on Saturday mornings. It’s something more complex, more textured. Something that probably looks different in every home, every relationship, every quiet moment when a kid decides whether they feel seen.
Maybe the most honest thing I can say is this: I’m still figuring out which parts of fatherhood matter most. I’m still learning to recognize the parts I inherited versus the parts I need to build myself. And I’m definitely still wrestling with the guilt that comes from wondering if working all the time is love or just the easiest version of it.
What about you? What’s something about fatherhood—whether you’re living it, witnessed it, or are still processing it—that surprised you? What are the parts of it nobody talks about? Drop a comment below. Let’s figure this out together