We were beyond excited when we learned Jessi was pregnant. We were going to have a baby! I remember those early weeks of making shopping lists and registries, and while we felt so much joy, we had our fair share of nervousness too. Wanting to prepare as much as we could, Jessi immediately jumped on the most comprehensive books for new moms, but when I tried to find similar books for new dads, well…
The first dad book I encountered bore a cartoon on the front of an excited looking woman holding a positive pregnancy test and a man looking absolutely terrified. This didn’t bode well. “Don’t judge a book by its cover though, right?” I thought as I cracked it open. The book sported diagrams and timelines (which made my nerdy heart happy), but I quickly noticed a trend: this book was aimed at jerks. It included suggestions such as “Maybe step up and do a few more chores this week” and “Maybe give the mom-to-be a back rub.” Seriously? This woman is growing a human, and you hadn’t even thought she might need a little extra help? (And how were you divvying up the chores in the first place that this even has to be a suggestion?) After reading a few weeks farther and seeing more of the same, I chucked the book in a donate bag. While I’m no saint, I clearly wasn’t the intended audience.
As I perused Amazon and my local used book store, I found quite a few fatherhood books geared specifically toward Christian men, but I decided to avoid them since every author came from a complementarian and/or patriarchal background. Jessi’s and my dynamic is different than what they prescribe, so it didn’t seem worth my time even to pick those books up. The secular fare wasn’t much better though. So often, these books had the tone of a cringey 90s-era standup comedian whose only jokes are about his wife. Every book I encountered seemed to assume I was a self-centered, emotionally-repressed manchild, so the bar for decent fatherhood was set painfully low. Eventually I reached a conclusion:
Most “new dad” books are written with Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin and Al Bundy in mind. If you’re even slightly emotionally aware, they won’t be much use to you.
I brought this frustration to a therapist buddy of mine, and he was able to recommend The New Father, which —though rightly assuming some ignorance on my part— at least didn’t feel the need to tell a joke every other sentence or put a cartoon every other page to hold my attention. (Though, admittedly, there are a few jokes and cartoons in there.) To this day, it’s the only new dad book I’ve found that didn’t make me roll my eyes constantly. It also had a far more charitable attitude toward new moms; I never encountered a single joke at their expense, and that’s the way it should be.
It’s sad to me that, for a subject as important as new fatherhood, I found one useful book. Still, I’m going to recommend that book wholeheartedly and hope for a day when we approach new fatherhood a little more seriously. After all, pregnancy is hard, and we should equip people to support pregnant partners. Parenting is hard, and we shouldn’t expect moms to do all the heavy lifting. I’m glad The New Father pushes for a supportive team approach; it’s just too bad so few other books in the genre do.