According to the New York Times, the apotheosis of fatherhood is getting your tits chopped off.
On Sunday, while the majority of the Western world paused to honor the men who provide, protect, and show up, the Times was busy lionizing women who underwent double mastectomies, injected themselves with testosterone, and are now passing themselves off as dads to impressionable young children.
The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/21/opinion/trans-dad-parenting-fathers-day.html">piece</a>, titled &#8220;To My Daughter, My Gender Was Never Complicated,&#8221; was written by Zach Ellams — born Clair Ellams — a London-based editor and motion designer, and a biological woman performing the role of father for an audience that eats it up.
The whole thing was a three-pronged disaster: a belittlement of actual fathers, a disturbing window into child confusion manufactured by adults, and a stark exposé of the New York Times&#8217; true priorities.
The essay&#8217;s illustrations were unintentionally the most honest part of the piece. The <a href="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/06/21/opinion/21jacobs-1/21jacobs-1-superJumbo-v4.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp">first</a>, captioned &#8220;you need a thick skin to be a parent,&#8221; showed Ellams&#8217; daughter, Elliot, shouting back: &#8220;You&#8217;re slow because you&#8217;re old.&#8221; A thick-skin moment, apparently.
<div style="max-width: 728px; margin: 0 auto;">
<iframe style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; max-width: 100%; width: 100%; margin: 20px auto 5px; border: 0;" src="https://player.mux.com/vPV9NXwv2ztltZw500ckeY8o7tDUjhp6G?metadata-video-content-type=embed_video&amp;metadata-video-id=55357fea-2c0f-4e36-9e1d-546f50796b5d&amp;metadata-video-stream-type=on-demand&amp;metadata-video-title=2026-06-22%20Trans%20Dad%20Comic%20Strip&amp;poster=https%3A%2F%2Fdailywireplus-v2.imgix.net%2Fimages%2Fembedded-videos%2F2d81b6c8-21a0-4c39-879e-cdc8da1038db.png&amp;autoplay=false&amp;accent-color=%23DB3D3B&amp;primary-color=%23ffffff&amp;secondary-color=%23000000" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
Credit: Daily Wire News
</div>
&nbsp;
Bless her. It only gets harder from here. Real thick skin between mothers and daughters is earned through war; fights over boys, curfew violations, outfit standoffs at the front door. That&#8217;s tough love, and it’s coming. Getting teased about your pace on a jog is just another Tuesday.
The illustrations also fixated, obsessively, on body hair. Ellams’ beard appeared in every frame: spotty, coarse, and uneven, with the leg hair cutting off at the knees in some panels and disappearing entirely in others. It reads less like confident self-expression and more like a woman overcompensating in ink what biology refused to provide.
As a female, I can confirm: when I don&#8217;t shave, I look like <a href="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/06/21/opinion/21jacobs-12b/21jacobs-12b-superJumbo-v3.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp">Figure A</a>. When I do, <a href="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2026/06/21/opinion/21jacobs-13/21jacobs-13-superJumbo-v3.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp">Figure B</a>.
You can change the body of a woman, but you can’t take the woman out of the body.
Novelist Lionel Shriver once <a href="https://x.com/bdomenech/status/2068760284857036874">remarked</a> that &#8220;masculinity as an ideal is pretty ridiculous&#8221; — a sentiment the Times appears to have taken as editorial policy. They didn&#8217;t just celebrate a woman pretending to be a father; they did it on Father&#8217;s Day, with full illustrations, treating the demolition of fatherhood as a gift to their readership.
The Gray Lady’s Weapon of Mass Emasculation, engaged.
The hair became a problem beyond the page. On the playground, little Elliot told her friends she wanted a beard when she grew up. Her classmate, in the blunt, unimpeachable logic of childhood, replied: &#8220;You can&#8217;t grow a beard, you&#8217;re a girl.&#8221; Elliot&#8217;s answer: &#8220;My dad did, and he was a girl.&#8221; The illustration showed surrounding parents shooting glares at ‘Zach’. Not at the child — at the adult who manufactured that confusion and sent it to school with her.
Earlier in the piece, Elliot asked her biological mother, “How did you grow a mustache if you were a lady?&#8221; Good question, sweetheart.
Children are not confused about biology. They are made confused by adults projecting their confusion or mental illness. Even in their earliest years, kids understand what their eyes tell them. The rewiring requires repetition; tell them again and again that what they see isn&#8217;t what&#8217;s real, that the rules of nature are negotiable, that it&#8217;s not only okay to defy common sense but courageous.
As Mr. Rogers famously and plainly sang, “Boys are boys from the beginning. Girls are girls right from the start.” Children know this. The project of confusing them is deliberate.
And this carries <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK610258/">documented</a> costs. Trans-identifying adults carry psychiatric burdens at rates that dwarf the general population: depression in up to 76% versus 29%, anxiety disorders in 62% versus 20%, autism spectrum traits around 11% versus 1%, and suicidality four to 13 times higher. These burdens are transmitted through genetics, through modeling, through the daily ambient chaos of a household built on an identity crisis to the children within them.
When Elliot tells her classmates her dad &#8220;was a girl,&#8221; she isn&#8217;t just confused about biology. She&#8217;s absorbing the full emotional weight of her parent&#8217;s pathology and carrying it onto the playground.
The New York Times didn’t run this piece just to mock the 74 million fathers in this country. They ran it because they hardly think about those fathers at all. What they do think about, deeply and devotedly, is the extreme minority of some 130,000 biological females cosplaying as dads.
And they think those women deserve a Sunday spread. Because to them, fatherhood isn&#8217;t sacred. It&#8217;s a problem to be solved.
They have genuine contempt for fathers and want the institution dismantled. When the father is minimized or replaced by a simulacrum, it&#8217;s easier to usher in perverse ideology and capture young minds. Children without anchors are easier to redirect, and for the progressive Left, the grooming and sexual mutilation of your children is the end that justifies every means. That same calculus allowed more than a quarter-million British girls to be raped, groomed, tortured, and abused in the Rotherham and Rochdale scandals, while progressive leaders looked away for years and let the rot spread.
This is the ideology being taught in schools today: children can explain stolen land theory but can&#8217;t pass algebra, why birth rates are collapsing, marriages are cratering, pornography is mainstreamed, and the family is quietly dismantled.
And it&#8217;s why the Times featured four Father&#8217;s Day <a href="https://x.com/mtaibbi/status/2068771487452897357">pieces</a> written by six people — three women, a trans &#8220;man,&#8221; and two childless men — with not a single fathering father among them. The themes were: &#8220;My father&#8217;s death was the start of my life.&#8221; &#8220;My father was an addict who failed me.&#8221; &#8220;The pain of caring for a parent who abused you.&#8221;
That&#8217;s what they think fatherhood is. A wound.
I feel sorry for the dads.
Because fatherhood is so much more than whatever grievance theater the Times is packaging for its perpetually aggrieved readers.
My father is everything to me. He is the reason my sisters and I are who we are. He is a sounding board, an equalizer, the calm in our chaotic female storm. He sends Bible verses and spontaneous motivational texts, always followed by &#8220;I love you.&#8221; When I come to him with a car question, a finance question, a &#8220;how do I do this&#8221; — he responds in seconds, putting down his own work without a second thought. In return for my thanks that can never adequately be expressed, he shoots back the simple thumbs-up emoji. Because his unending support isn’t a favor. It’s just part of the job.
He taught us patience. He taught us kindness. He once told me his whole philosophy was to just &#8220;smile at people — makes them feel good.&#8221; He is most content after a day tending to his chickens and his yard, gathered around the dinner table with all his girls.
He is our everything. He is needed and he is wanted. And I will never — not for one solitary minute — allow a loveless, liberal newspaper to belittle his glory.
Thank you, dads. We love you.

A participant with a rainbow fan and a placard takes part

The New York Times Tries To Hate Dads But Doesn’t Know What One Is

DW Opinion

Father's Day

fatherhood

New York Times

Transgender

Critics have been saying almost since the beginning that the transgender movement is erasing women — but The New York Times celebrated Father&#8217;s Day by proving they&#8217;re erasing men too.
The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/21/opinion/trans-dad-parenting-fathers-day.html?smid=url-share">article</a> in question, a guest essay titled &#8220;To My Daughter, My Gender Was Never Complicated,&#8221; was published on Sunday morning — just in time for Father&#8217;s Day — and used a comic strip style to explore the trials and travails of a trans-identifying woman&#8217;s foray into &#8220;fatherhood.&#8221;
The frames reveal that the author, Zach Ellams, had been identifying as male for years, but had not officially announced to everyone that she was trans — but once she had a daughter, she had to learn to talk about things, in part because her daughter asked questions in public that made it necessary.
In one frame, while at a public pool, the daughter drew stares by asking, &#8220;How did you grow a mustache if you were a lady?&#8221;
In another, the daughter announced after school, &#8220;I told my friends at school that Mom made you a cake when you got your surgery.&#8221;
The moral of the story, as the article played out, was that the daughter was ultimately so accepting of her gender that she realized it was adults who made things complicated — and that helped her to &#8220;embrace&#8221; her male identity.
Critics were not impressed by the paper&#8217;s editorial choices for Father&#8217;s Day, however, and said so.
&#8220;This is what the @nytimes went with for Fathers Day. A cartoon &#8216;essay&#8217; by a trans &#8216;dad,'&#8221; XX/XY Athletics founder Jennifer Sey <a href="https://x.com/JenniferSey/status/2068719772670505013">commented</a>.
Matt Taibbi added, &#8220;Today’s NYT editorial on Father’s Day is an all-timer. Again, don’t know where to put it on the funny-vs-horrifying axis.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Today’s NYT editorial on Father’s Day is an all-timer. Again, don’t know where to put it on the funny-vs-horrifying axis: <a href="https://t.co/oCQhSr2nJB">https://t.co/oCQhSr2nJB</a> <a href="https://t.co/Y6jl0unK8c">pic.twitter.com/Y6jl0unK8c</a>
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) <a href="https://x.com/mtaibbi/status/2068721145633800231?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 21, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;I want to congratulate @nytimes for perfectly catching how the cultural elite view men and fatherhood this Father’s Day — yes, to the Times, being a dad is something you do to feel better about having your t*ts cut off. Cannot make it up,&#8221; <a href="https://x.com/AlexBerenson/status/2068706596893450383">Alex Berenson said</a>.

Photo illustration by The Daily Wire

New York Times Celebrates Father’s Day By Erasing Men

Pride Month

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Kids need strong dads. Like, really strong. After all, if your dad can’t bench 225 lbs, he’s probably your mom. 
All kidding aside, I embrace being the “jacked” dad. A father’s strength is often the first form of security a child experiences. Kids want to be carried to bed, put on your shoulders, and thrown in the pool. And every summer, I make a spectacle of ripping my shirt off and getting my daughter’s loaded camp trunk from the top of her closet while making Hulk sounds. While my sons actually do care what I can bench, most kids don’t. They just care that dad can do things.
Laughing about “dad bods” led to acceptance, which turned into a celebration of sorts. Eventually, we stopped expecting fathers to remain physically capable. But physical capability isn’t vanity. It’s part of the job description. This conversation isn’t about abs. It’s about refusing to be average in areas we can control and that our kids can observe. The inevitable decline of age will catch us all, but surrendering is optional. And I spent years surrendering. 
When my wife told me we were pregnant with our first child, I was sitting on the couch eating pizza. For years, I had been saying I’d “get in shape” soon. Long gone were the college football days that came with a strength coach’s accountability. So, I threw the slice in the trash and went on a health journey. I told my wife that if I couldn’t take care of myself, I shouldn’t be expected to take care of a child. 
That inflection point sent me on a 50-pound weight-loss journey, and the last 11 years have been a lesson in the benefits of being a strong dad. 
My kids know that their beauty is an inherent gift from God, but their health and their strength are mostly within their control and reflect our family’s values. 
I teach them that their bodies are their business cards. Before people hear your values, they see your habits. Your body tells a story not about perfection, but about priorities. Do you do hard things? Do you set goals? Are you reliable to show up? Your body doesn’t reveal everything about your character, but it usually reveals something.
And our home is where these habits should be most visible. Kids copy far more than they listen. I can’t expect them to keep their bedroom clean if ours is a mess. I can’t demand they eat healthy if I’m constantly digging through the pantry for junk food. The same is true for fitness.
Years ago, I built a gym in our garage. My kids see me work out every day. But they’re seeing more than the routine of reps. They’re seeing delayed gratification, discipline, effort, injury, and setbacks. They&#8217;re watching their dad set goals, struggle, fail, try again, and eventually succeed. In many ways, they are capturing all the lessons of parenting, marriage, and life. 
There is also a faith element here, and we take our faith more seriously than fitness. God didn’t call men to be bodybuilders, but he did call men to protect, provide, serve, and carry burdens. Physical capability forges all four. Strength isn’t the goal; service is. But strength helps.
Christianity emphasizes a life of uncomfortable sacrifice. Weight training is voluntary discomfort. One willingly embraces struggle now to become more useful later. That is fundamentally Christian. Jesus carried the cross. We shoulder burdens. 
While our culture often teaches us either to worship our bodies or ignore them, Christianity teaches neither. Scripture teaches stewardship. First Corinthians 6:19 says, “Your body is a temple for the Holy Spirit.” God has entrusted me with a wife, children, time, resources, and a body. Stewardship means carrying all of them. The goal is not vanity. It’s readiness. Christian men should not aspire to be impressive. They should aspire to be useful. And nowhere is that usefulness needed more than inside the walls of your home.
But capability doesn’t just benefit your children. Before I was a dad, I was a husband. Love isn’t merely spoken; it’s demonstrated through action. When you are physically capable, you are better able to carry your share, serve, protect, and show up. My wife already has enough things to take care of. I’m refusing to be one of them.
Weight training <a href="https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/56/13/755?utm_">lowers your risk of all-cause mortality</a>. I don’t just want to walk my daughter down the aisle. I want to dance with her kids at their weddings. And I want to give my sons fatherhood advice when they’re 40. One of the greatest gifts I can give my kids is putting in the effort to stay around. 
I don’t know when I’ll lift my kids onto my shoulders for the last time, but that day will come. Seasons of life end, and age is undefeated. But until then, I will be capable for the people God entrusted to me. They deserve the strongest version of me. And while fatherhood is about being strong and not looking strong, you still might catch me throwing up the occasional flex on the beach.  
***
Gates Garcia is the host of the YouTube show and podcast We The People with Gates Garcia. Follow him on X and Instagram @GatesGarciaFL.

GettyImages-523139400

The Surprising Gift Strong Fathers Give Their Kids

Upstream

There is good news about fatherhood in America today: dads are more engaged in their kids’ lives than ever, a fact heralded by scholars, advocates, and journalists. The Atlantic writer Derek Thompson <a href="https://www.derekthompson.org/p/why-do-richer-dads-spend-more-time">saluted</a> dads who “became the parents their fathers never were.” Richard Reeves of the American Institute for Boys and Men <a href="https://ifstudies.org/blog/what-gender-war">points</a> to how men “have massively increased the amount of childcare” they are doing. Noting the time that married fathers are devoting to their families has tripled since the 1960s, the Institute for Family Studies’ Lyman Stone <a href="https://ifstudies.org/blog/american-dads-rock-fathers-are-doing-more-at-home-than-ever">put it</a> this way: “American Dads Rock.”
But there is also sobering news to report on the fatherhood front. Fewer young men are becoming fathers at all — we are seeing the rise of what might be called the “Vanishing Father.” In fact, a big reason that today’s dads look so good is that fatherhood has become much more selective, increasingly concentrated among men with the <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/x4j79_v2">financial resources</a>, social capital, or cultural commitments that make family formation a possibility and a priority. The ranks of the childless, meanwhile, are surging among younger, less-educated, liberal, and secular men.
In fact, the share of men in their prime family-building years (25-45) who are fathers has fallen from two-thirds in 1980 to 53% in 2024. This means that almost 1 in 2 men in this group are not dads. It also means that the number of men ages 25-45 who are childless has risen from 10 million in 1980 to 23 million in 2024, a record high.
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_1119095" style="width: 2570px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1119095" class="size-full wp-image-1119095" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/1-finalfathers2545total--scaled.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1723" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/1-finalfathers2545total--scaled.jpg 2560w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/1-finalfathers2545total--300x202.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/1-finalfathers2545total--856x576.jpg 856w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/1-finalfathers2545total--768x517.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/1-finalfathers2545total--1536x1034.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/1-finalfathers2545total--2048x1378.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" />Credit: IFS</div>
This Institute for Family Studies (IFS) report spotlights the growing share of men who are not crossing the threshold into fatherhood, the ways age, class, and culture shape entry into fatherhood today, and the likely consequences of declining family formation among men for them and the nation. We draw on the General Social Survey (GSS), a decades-long survey of American adults run by NORC at the University of Chicago. For this analysis, we focus on American men ages 25 to 45. Data from the Human Fertility Collection suggests that over 80% of births are fathered by men between these ages. While the average age at childbirth is rising, and many men are delaying fatherhood, fertility data suggests younger cohorts will see higher rates of childlessness. We include younger men in our sample to see which groups are most likely to be affected by these projected declines in fatherhood.
<h3 class="p4">Declines by Age</h3>
Declines are most prominent among younger men. Whereas the majority of men ages 25–35 were fathers in the 1980s, just 38% are today. Part of this story is delayed parenthood. The average age of new fathers has been rising for decades, alongside that of women.
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_1119097" style="width: 2570px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1119097" class="size-full wp-image-1119097" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/2-finalfathersagegrouped--scaled.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1723" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/2-finalfathersagegrouped--scaled.jpg 2560w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/2-finalfathersagegrouped--300x202.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/2-finalfathersagegrouped--856x576.jpg 856w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/2-finalfathersagegrouped--768x517.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/2-finalfathersagegrouped--1536x1034.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/2-finalfathersagegrouped--2048x1378.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" />Credit: IFS</div>
But delayed fatherhood isn’t the whole story. An analysis of the latest birth rate trends by IFS senior fellow Lyman Stone suggests that <a href="https://ifstudies.org/blog/1-in-4-projecting-childlessness-among-todays-young-women">1 in 4 young women today</a> will never have children, up from the 15% historic baseline. This dramatic rise in childlessness will be paralleled among today’s young men.
<h3 class="p4">Declines by Education</h3>
Historically, men in their prime family building years without a college degree were much more likely to be fathers than their college-educated peers. In the 1980s, 70% of men between 25 and 45 who did not have a bachelor’s degree were fathers, compared to just 53% of those with a higher degree. Today, 57% of men between ages 25-45 without a college degree are fathers, a 13-percentage-point decrease from the 1980s. Although less-educated men are still more likely to be fathers, they have seen larger declines than the college-educated. The share of college-educated men who are dads has only fallen by 8 percentage points.
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_1119099" style="width: 2570px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1119099" class="size-full wp-image-1119099" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/3-finalfatherseduc--scaled.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1723" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/3-finalfatherseduc--scaled.jpg 2560w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/3-finalfatherseduc--300x202.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/3-finalfatherseduc--856x576.jpg 856w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/3-finalfatherseduc--768x517.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/3-finalfatherseduc--1536x1034.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/3-finalfatherseduc--2048x1378.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" />Credit: IFS</div>
Over the past few decades, the connection between marriage and fatherhood has also changed among working-class men. In the 1980s, the vast majority of working-class dads were married: 58% of less-educated men between ages 25 and 45 were married fathers — just 12% were unmarried with children. But unmarried fatherhood has risen since then, while married fatherhood has declined for this group of men. Today, 34% of working-class men between ages 25 and 45 are married fathers, and 23% are unmarried fathers.
By contrast, unmarried fatherhood remains just as rare among well-educated men today, at just 6%, as it was in the 1980s, at 5%. This means that declines in fatherhood among college-educated men are almost entirely declines in married fatherhood.
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_1119103" style="width: 2570px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1119103" class="size-full wp-image-1119103" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/4-finalfathersstackededuc--scaled.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1723" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/4-finalfathersstackededuc--scaled.jpg 2560w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/4-finalfathersstackededuc--300x202.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/4-finalfathersstackededuc--856x576.jpg 856w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/4-finalfathersstackededuc--768x517.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/4-finalfathersstackededuc--1536x1034.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/4-finalfathersstackededuc--2048x1378.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" />Credit: IFS</div>
<h3 class="p4">Declines by Ideology</h3>
Class disparities in family formation get plenty of coverage. But today, cultural factors — ideology especially — are stronger predictors of entry into fatherhood than class. Using the latest GSS data, we find that just 37% of liberal men ages 25–45 are fathers, compared to 62% of their conservative peers. That 25-percentage-point gap dwarfs the 12-point gap between college-educated and less-educated men.
The divergence has widened sharply over time. Liberal men have seen fatherhood rates fall 21 percentage points since the 1980s — down from 58% — while fatherhood among conservative men has declined only 7 percentage points. When it comes to predicting which men are becoming fathers today, culture looks more determinative than class.
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_1119107" style="width: 2570px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1119107" class="size-full wp-image-1119107" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/5-finalfathersideo-1--scaled.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1723" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/5-finalfathersideo-1--scaled.jpg 2560w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/5-finalfathersideo-1--300x202.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/5-finalfathersideo-1--856x576.jpg 856w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/5-finalfathersideo-1--768x517.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/5-finalfathersideo-1--1536x1034.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/5-finalfathersideo-1--2048x1378.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" />Credit: IFS</div>
There is little difference between married and unmarried fatherhood across ideological lines. We find that, today, 68% of liberal fathers between ages 25 and 45 are married, compared to 72% of conservative fathers. These differences are statistically insignificant. It should be noted that conservative men have seen a substantial increase in unmarried fatherhood since the 1980s, rising from 1 in 10 to around 1 in 4 fathers ages 25 to 45.
<h3 class="p4">Declines by Religiosity</h3>
Religiosity, measured by religious attendance, is another strong predictor of who is a father in America today. The latest data shows that 64% of men between the ages of 25 and 45 who frequently attend religious services are fathers. Just half of secular men in that age range have children. Both groups, notably, have seen similar declines in fatherhood in recent years.
&nbsp;
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1119113" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/6-finalfathersattend--scaled.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1723" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/6-finalfathersattend--scaled.jpg 2560w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/6-finalfathersattend--300x202.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/6-finalfathersattend--856x576.jpg 856w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/6-finalfathersattend--768x517.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/6-finalfathersattend--1536x1034.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/6-finalfathersattend--2048x1378.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" />
<h3 class="p4">Men Without a Mission</h3>
After surveying dozens of cultures, the anthropologist Margaret Mead concluded that masculinity is not a natural state but a social accomplishment. Cultures had to work hard to channel men’s talents, energies, ambitions, and interests in prosocial directions. In <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lWWHQgAACAAJ&amp;dq=mead,+male+and+female&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjqifXL0pPWAhViYpoKHfPjAEEQ6AEIMzAC">Male and Female</a>, published in 1949, she further argued that fostering prosocial masculinity was inseparable from family life — because “every known human society rests firmly on the learned nurturing behavior of men.” So long as it is tied into the fabric of family life, fatherhood, in her view, gives men something few other institutions can: a clear mission in life.
Half a century later, Nobel laureate George Akerlof made a similar case from economics. In his 1998 paper “<a href="https://academic.oup.com/ej/article-abstract/108/447/287/5128553">Men Without Children</a>,” he concluded that without the responsibility and commitment that marriage and fatherhood demand, men often tend to drift — toward atomization, idleness, and higher rates of crime and substance abuse. Recently, USC psychologist Darby Saxbe <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/06/opinion/dad-brain-health-fatherhood.html">put</a> the positive case well in the New York Times: engaged fatherhood cultivates in men “strength coupled with a willingness to look out for the young and vulnerable, to teach but also listen, to lead by example, to tackle daunting challenges and to persevere with grit.”
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_1119117" style="width: 2570px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1119117" class="size-full wp-image-1119117" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/7-finalfatherhappiness--scaled.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1723" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/7-finalfatherhappiness--scaled.jpg 2560w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/7-finalfatherhappiness--300x202.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/7-finalfatherhappiness--856x576.jpg 856w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/7-finalfatherhappiness--768x517.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/7-finalfatherhappiness--1536x1034.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/06/7-finalfatherhappiness--2048x1378.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" />Credit: IFS</div>
There is no question that some men do not seem to require the disciplines of family and fatherhood to thrive — work, or sport, or faith is enough to orient these male lives in meaningful and fulfilling ways. But contemporary research confirms the wisdom of Akerlof, Mead, and Saxbe: for most men, life is better when it is grounded in family and fatherhood. Men without children are typically living lives that are <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ageing-and-society/article/childlessness-and-social-and-emotional-loneliness-in-middle-and-later-life/E412E2A2FAAA5AC4F0A0EDE5EA35CC0F">lonelier</a>, less <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250387523/dadbrain/">purposeful</a>, and less happy than their peers who are engaged fathers — most typically in the <a href="https://ifstudies.org/ifs-admin/resources/briefs/ifs-wang-fatherstimebrief-oct2023-1.pdf">context</a> of marriage. Indeed, there is no question that married fathers are the happiest men in America today — they are more than twice as likely to be “very happy” with their lives, compared to their peers who are childless and unmarried.
The evidence, in short, suggests that separating men from marriage and family is bad for men — and, likely, bad for the country. That’s because such men are significantly more likely to succumb to <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10680-024-09699-2">idleness</a>, <a href="https://sampson.scholars.harvard.edu/sites/g/files/omnuum1841/files/sampson/files/2006_criminology_laubwimer_1.pdf">crime</a>, and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23780231241275429">deaths</a> of <a href="https://ifstudies.org/blog/married-people-are-living-their-best-lives">despair</a>. And if current trends hold, it is younger, less-educated, liberal, and secular men who will pay the steepest price for the rise of the Vanishing American Father.
***
This is republished with permission from the Institute for Family Studies. The original can be found <a href="https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-vanishing-american-father-more-men-are-opting-out-of-fatherhood">here</a>.
Grant Bailey is a Research Fellow and IFS Insights Editor at the Institute for Family Studies.
Brad Wilcox is Melville Foundation Jefferson Scholars Foundation University Professor of Sociology and Director of the <a href="https://nationalmarriageproject.org/">National Marriage Project</a> at the University of Virginia, Future of Freedom Fellow and Director of the Get Married Initiative at the <a href="https://ifstudies.org/">Institute for Family Studies</a>, and a nonresident senior fellow at the <a href="https://www.aei.org/">American Enterprise Institute</a>.

A man wakes up on a sofa, surrounded by sheets and duvets and pillows. He rubs his eyes and face as he tries to rouse himself.

The Great Unfathering: American Dads Are Disappearing

Childlessness

Institute for Family Studies

Marriage

Masculinity

Despite being among Hollywood&#8217;s top box office draws, one of the most memorable scenes in Will Smith’s acting career was from his time on the hit television sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. 
In the episode “Papa’s Got a Brand New Excuse,” Will’s biological father, Lou, comes to see him 14 years after walking out of his life. Phillip Banks, Will’s uncle and legal guardian, is skeptical of Lou’s sudden reappearance. Uncle Phil reluctantly comes to support Lou’s efforts to reconcile with Will, but that goodwill is quickly exhausted after Lou postpones the cross-country trip he’d planned with his son.
The scene ends with Will Smith giving an iconic monologue about all the things he learned to do in the past—and would accomplish in the future—without his father, punctuated by the actor’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI4Mv8R0mE0">unforgettable cry</a>, &#8220;How come he don&#8217;t want me, man?&#8221;
That episode is over 30 years old, yet all these years later it still evokes powerful emotions from viewers, some of whom saw their own life story reflected on the screen. But underneath the masterclass in acting was a deeper message.
It is clear that Will missed his father and was hurt by his absence. What is easier to miss, however, is that the void created by Lou’s abandonment was too large for even Uncle Phil’s massive frame — and wealth — to fill.
Will’s dad was a truck driver. Uncle Phil was a successful lawyer who eventually became a judge. The former left his son with little but disappointments and broken promises. The latter gave Will a lifestyle his father could never have afforded.
Yet, for all Phillip and his wife Vivian offered Will — the mansion, elite private school, nice clothes — nothing could satisfy the teen’s longing for a father.
The reason why is simple: children desire a father’s presence more than his presents.
Children who grow up with a <a href="https://ifstudies.org/blog/less-poverty-less-prison-more-college-what-two-parents-mean-for-black-and-white-children">father</a> in the home earn better grades, are more likely to attend college, and are less likely to live in poverty or go to prison. Conversely, father <a href="https://www.fatherhood.org/father-absence-statistic?hsCtaAttrib=187989555043">absence</a> is associated with higher rates of poverty, teen pregnancy, juvenile delinquency, and substance abuse. Fathers also help answer deeper questions of purpose and belonging that every child has at some point, such as “who am I?” and “whose am I?”
Unfortunately, 15 million American children live <a href="https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/families/children.html">without</a> a father in the home. That figure, which is slightly more than 20% of all children under 18, is the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/12/12/u-s-children-more-likely-than-children-in-other-countries-to-live-with-just-one-parent/">highest</a> rate in the world.
The family statistics for black children are even more sobering. Nearly 70% of black children are born to unmarried parents, and 44% grow up in a single-mother household. For all the attention progressives normally give to racial disparities in social outcomes, they are noticeably silent when it comes to such vast differences in family formation.
My new book, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/763688/the-vanishing-black-family-by-delano-squires/">The Vanishing Black Family</a>, challenges African American leaders to marshal their political, cultural, and financial capital to launch a new movement to increase the number of children growing up in loving homes with married parents.
The book begins with a scene from a 1986 CBS documentary on the collapse of the married, two-parent family structure in Newark, New Jersey. The host, Bill Moyers, asks a group of young black mothers whether any of them were married. No one raised a hand. Later, one mom expresses a view that — decades later — has been accepted in far too many neighborhoods, “Male figures are not substantially important in the family.” This way of thinking has quietly become an accepted norm that not only drives family formation patterns but also policy decisions.
In January 2022, Washington, D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser announced the launch of <a href="https://mayor.dc.gov/release/mayor-bowser-announces-15-million-direct-cash-assistance-program-support-new-and-expectant">Strong Families, Strong Futures</a>, a $1.5 million pilot program that provided financial assistance to new and expecting low-income mothers. According to Mayor Bowser, “This program is about supporting new and expectant moms with cash so that they can have the autonomy and flexibility to make the best choices for them and their baby.” There was not a single reference to fathers in her announcement.
Given the geographic and demographic focus of the program, it was no surprise that the moms in the pilot were black. Similar programs for moms and babies exist in <a href="https://atlantaciviccircle.org/2024/05/08/in-her-hands-expansion-gro-fund/">Atlanta</a> and <a href="https://www.phillyjoybank.org/our-impact">Philadelphia</a>. They all rest on the flawed idea that when it comes to low-income black families, it takes two for nature but only one for nurture.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Children of every race and socioeconomic background need both parents, and they are most likely to have daily access to them when their parents are married.
Any attempt to ensure more children have the type of paternal connection that improves their chances of thriving in life will require an all-hands-on-deck effort from black pastors, elected officials, HBCU presidents, business leaders, civil rights organizations, entertainers, political pundits, and media outlets.
This movement will need to include everything from “marriage bootcamps” for cohabiting couples with children to “<a href="https://ifstudies.org/success-sequence">success sequence</a>” awareness campaigns that give teens the three-step plan for escaping <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/being-a-teen-parent-will-cost-you/2013/03/14/434b51c8-8cb4-11e2-b63f-f53fb9f2fcb4_story.html">poverty</a>: finish high school, get a job, and get married before having children. These may seem like small steps, but they all support the goal of restoring a culture of marriage in communities where one has not existed for decades.
Father’s Day is a perfect time to acknowledge the dads who give their kids the home life they need to thrive. It also provides a good opportunity to push current — and future — fathers to think about how their relationship decisions will impact their children.
Marriage and fatherhood go hand in hand. It is hard for a man who lives apart from his child and feels little commitment to the child’s mother to be as present and involved a dad as his child needs him to be.
Dads matter, and the safety and security children feel from their love and consistent presence is worth more than anything money can buy.
***
Delano Squires is the director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Human Flourishing at The Heritage Foundation and author of <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/763688/the-vanishing-black-family-by-delano-squires/">The Vanishing Black Family: How Welfare and Feminism Made Marriage Optional and Children Vulnerable</a> (out June 16, 2026 from Penguin Random House/Sentinel).

Father carrying daughter while looking through window at home

What’s Really Behind The Vanishing Black Family

American family

Black families

Fathers

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
The cultural script about parenthood has consistently sidelined fathers. Women want children, we&#8217;re told, and men might eventually be persuaded into fatherhood. But something has shifted.
A recent <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/15/among-young-adults-without-children-men-are-more-likely-than-women-to-say-they-want-to-be-parents-someday/">Pew Research Center analysis</a> found that among young adults ages 18 to 34 who do not yet have children, 57% of men say they want kids someday, compared to just 45% of women. This reverses a decades-long pattern in which women consistently reported stronger desires for parenthood than men.
Men aren&#8217;t just willing to be fathers; they want to be good ones. According to the <a href="https://aibm.org/research/dads-rock-the-evidence/">American Institute for Boys and Men</a>, the time fathers spend with their children has grown by over 250% since the 1960s, and nearly two in three dads still say they spend too little time with their kids. The modern man is no longer confined to the roles of provider and protector alone; emotional connection, caregiving, and presence are now seen as strengths. The useless, comic-relief sitcom dad feels stale, replaced by fathers who are more engaged and treat fatherhood as something to aspire to.
This shift is starting to be reflected in culture. Much has already been said about Bandit, the dad in the kids&#8217; show <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-gap-between-two-popular-kid-shows-is-bigger-than-it-looks">&#8220;Bluey,&#8221;</a> but we are also seeing changes in video games.
Capcom&#8217;s recently released title Pragmata has already been dubbed a &#8220;dad simulator&#8221; by gamers. The game sold over <a href="https://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/news/html/e260420.html">1 million copies (at $60 a pop) in two days</a>. Pragmata follows Hugh, a man tasked with protecting and guiding a naive young (android) girl through a hostile environment. Beneath the sci-fi combat, players have been drawn to something more resonant: the protective instinct, the mentorship, and the pride of helping someone grow. In short, the best parts of being a dad.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Girl-dad here, my daughters are in their early 20s now.
To all the guys out there who society told being a responsible father was a fate worse than death, and who are now getting a glimpse through Pragmata of what fatherhood might be like:
You were lied to hard, sorry bro,… <a href="https://t.co/z2u4mW1kOL">https://t.co/z2u4mW1kOL</a> <a href="https://t.co/ydYk0wXYfl">pic.twitter.com/ydYk0wXYfl</a>
— Timothy Stebbing (@tjstebbing) <a href="https://twitter.com/tjstebbing/status/2047189552587219228?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 23, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
This isn&#8217;t an isolated phenomenon. Games such as The Last of Us and God of War have already demonstrated how powerful fatherhood narratives can be. But Joel and Kratos are reluctant, grief-shaped fathers. They remain emotionally distant and walled-off. Hugh, by contrast, takes genuine joy in his pseudo fatherhood. The &#8220;sad dad&#8221; archetype is giving way to something warmer, and the market response to Pragmata suggests audiences are hungry for it.
Video games have always found success as power fantasies with aspirational characters. Now, a significant part of that aspiration includes fatherhood.
Why now? Traditional markers of male achievement, such as home ownership, seem unobtainable. The economy feels oppressive, and the cultural narratives that once gave men a clear sense of purpose have grown thin. Masculinity is demonized relentlessly, and young men feel it. Fatherhood offers something concrete: a person who truly needs you and values your very existence. It is no surprise that social media is filled with videos of fathers coming home to hugs from excited children, often captioned with the sentiment, &#8220;Other men may be wealthy. This man is rich.&#8221;
Becoming a dad isn&#8217;t the end of freedom but the beginning of something that finally matters. Men are not just accepting fatherhood; they&#8217;re seeking it out. They&#8217;re dreaming about it. And the culture is starting to catch up. Games like Pragmata offer a different message. Fatherhood is a sacrifice. It always has been. But its legacy outlasts the man, and its reward outlasts his own life.

Pragmata

Culture Mocked The ‘Useless Dad,’ But Now Even Video Games Are Selling A Different Story

Culture

family

A new ad for Disney Cruise Line is receiving rave reviews online thanks to its pro-family messaging and touching storyline.
The 90-second ad “Midnight Magic,” which debuted on Sunday during the Academy Awards, focuses on a father’s bond with his son. 
It opens with a father walking his infant son around on the ship in the middle of the night. The ad follows the pair as the son grows into an older kid and then a teen who briefly rejects the ritual. This heartwarming tale ends when the adult son knocks on the door and asks his now elderly father to go for a late-night walk on the cruise ship with him and his young daughter. 
Social media users loved the message of present fathers, family traditions, and making memories.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Where Magic Meets The Sea | Disney Cruise Line" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yw922nyPxZs?start=3&#038;feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
“Challenge any father to watch this without crying,” one commenter <a href="https://x.com/mondoggg/status/2033347711261348292">wrote</a>. 
“You crushed it with this one!!  Dads are amazing and well worth those quiet moments of reflection and the impact it has on kids. Love this!!!” another <a href="https://x.com/oyveynottoday/status/2033608013773148624">said</a>. 
Other commenters delighted in the company promoting traditional values once again.
“Back to the basics Disney..  your BRAND was built on this RIGHT HERE….,” one person <a href="https://x.com/THEprivbnkr/status/2033374671379247267">responded</a>.
“You guys really nailed it with this,” another reply <a href="https://x.com/JoshChavis65/status/2033351196174360701">said</a>. “More of this from this brand, please. It’s what it’s supposed to be.”
“The culture shift is real, this Disney cruise ship ad aimed at dads is fantastic,” echoed <a href="https://x.com/claytravis/status/2033719663624888745?s=43">another</a>.
“Disney has brought families closer together for generations,” <a href="https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/news/midnight-magic-cruise-line/">said</a> Asad Ayaz, Chief Marketing and Brand Officer for The Walt Disney Company. “This campaign embodies what guests tell us time and again: that the Disney experiences they cherish most are the ones spent with the people they love. We’re grateful to make that kind of Disney magic a reality.”
The ad comes as fans speculate over Disney veering away from the woke path it had been traveling down. The entertainment giant ended 2024 by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/will-woke-exit-stage-left-hollywoods-culture-clash-in-trumps-second-act">erasing a trans character</a> from one of their shows, followed weeks later by walking back their DEI policies.
While Disney hasn’t done a complete about-face, the company has been less controversial over the last year, especially as compared to when it was bragging about a “not-at-all-secret gay agenda” in 2022.

Disney Cruise

Did Disney Finally Get The Memo? Surprising New Cruise Ad Has Viewers In Tears

Disney Got The Memo? New Cruise Ad Celebrating Dads Has Viewers In Tears

advertising

Disney

Parenting

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
My parents still live in my childhood home, and I live one street away. It is common for my dad to stop me on jogs for a quick catchup. My wife and I often joke that we can’t escape my parents’ presence. But we don’t want to. At 40, I cannot imagine a life where my father isn’t present. That didn’t happen by accident.
Unfortunately, I am becoming part of a shrinking group. A <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10254574/">2022 study reveals</a> that by adulthood, 28% of daughters and 24% of sons are estranged from their fathers, while only 6% are estranged from their mothers. With so much talk surrounding a myriad of childhood crises these days, I propose we have a fatherhood crisis.
When I was growing up, my dad was hard on me. I was pushed to play sports and always required to have a summer job. But when I’d come home from practice or bussing tables, he was always there. My dad constantly told me he loved me, almost to my exhaustion as I was encouraged to repeat it back. He was teaching me both to be loved and how to love. 
Even when I went far from home to play college football, my dad attended every game. Presence was a priority. He taught me that closeness was normal. I have no memories of my dad not being there, and thus I couldn’t envision any other way of life. My dad didn’t just provide; he stayed.
So why are so many men losing their adult children? We can start with divorce. Nearly one-third of American children <a href="https://www.nber.org/digest/202508/parental-divorce-and-childrens-long-term-outcomes">experience</a> divorce before adulthood. Fathers are far more likely to become the non-resident parent post-divorce. Less time equals weaker bonds. 
But while divorce affects the quantity of a dad’s time with his children, it does not explain resignation. Even married fathers can be emotionally absent. This is when the culture takes over instead. I know from the countless times I hear “Daddy, watch me!” that kids want to be seen. When they aren’t seen by their parents, they <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/kids-dont-need-more-online-monitoring-they-need-involved-dads">resort to social media and gaming,</a> where their presence is validated and celebrated. One <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5700711/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">multi-year study found</a> that as gaming increases, the perceived quality of family relationships tends to deteriorate — especially when parental bonds are weaker. If dad doesn’t see his kids, the algorithm will.
The good news is the <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12025700/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">same studies indicate</a> that stronger parental attachment (emotional closeness and social support) is linked to lower levels of gaming addiction in adolescents, suggesting that weaker attachment may be associated with more compulsive engagement with games. If you&#8217;re a dad, ask yourself, how many times a day do you tell your kids you love them? Are you leading them toward you or pushing them away?
In a society that is constantly turning its back on institutions, perhaps one of the oldest institutions, the church, may help families the most here. The Bible tells us in Malachi 4:6, “He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers.”
<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249707705_Religious_Participation_Religious_Affiliation_and_Engagement_With_Children_Among_Fathers_Experiencing_the_Birth_of_a_New_Child">Studies looking at fathers specifically</a> find that factors such as church attendance and broad religious participation are positively related to paternal engagement with children — meaning men who are more involved in religious communities also tend to be more engaged with their kids. The church provides families with shared rituals and a shared moral language. Families that pray together, stay together.
While a lot of quality time is important for fathers to prioritize with their sons, ultimately, boys go to college and eventually graduate into manhood. They will have to think and act for themselves. My dad prepared me for this in a way I’m trying to emulate for my four kids. My dad was always there. Presence, not perfection, was the standard. Time, not money, was our family’s currency. I literally can’t think of a childhood memory that doesn’t have my dad in it. 
My dad vocalized his expectations often and held incredibly high standards for me. Any time I’d say I couldn’t do something, his response was always, “Why not?” Win district tournaments in wrestling in just my first year? Why not? Get a job at a top financial firm with no experience? Why not? Become president one day? Why not? Pressure isolates, but expectations build identity. And a lifetime sitting at the feet of my father has been one defined by expectations. 
Finally, and maybe most importantly, we shared our future with one another. That future involved both of us. We’d talk about our lives ahead and include both of us in the story. I remember conversations about future milestones in my own fatherhood and how my dad couldn’t wait to be a grandpa. As a child, I couldn’t envision adulthood without my dad.
If nearly a quarter of adult sons cut their dads off, something foundational is breaking. And it’s the job of a dad to build a solid foundation. The best thing you can give your kids is a reason to stay. Share meals together. Go to church together. Talk about life and the future. Tell your kids you love them and expect great things for and from them. Hug them and kiss them. Live your life with your kids, not just for them. Build independence in them without emotional distance. Teach them how to love by loving them first. 
We don’t have a boy crisis. We have a dad problem. And it’s fixable. I live one street from my dad because he never gave me a reason to leave.
* * *
Gates Garcia is the host of the YouTube show and podcast “We The People.” Follow him on Instagram and X @GatesGarciaFL.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Angry Black Elderly Father And Son Fighting With Each Other. Disagreement.

Why So Many Grown Kids Are Cutting Off Their Fathers

Editor’s note: This week, we’re reprinting some of our best stories from the past year. In this piece, originally published in June, Gates Garcia offers a reminder that true masculinity is not toxic.
* * *
The Left’s successful rebranding of masculinity as “toxic” didn’t just rewrite a dictionary entry — it rewired the cultural DNA that once produced great men.
In 2018, the American Psychological Association updated its Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Boys and Men, effectively declaring stoicism, risk-taking, and competitiveness — the building blocks of masculine virtue — “<a href="https://www.apa.org/about/policy/boys-men-practice-guidelines.pdf">psychologically harmful</a>.”  
Within months, Gillette aired its infamous &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYaY2Kb_PKI">We Believe</a>&#8220; commercial, scolding ordinary dads at backyard barbecues while implying every son harbored a bully within. Seemingly overnight, &#8220;toxic&#8221; became the default adjective attached to manhood.
But this cultural ambush was decades in the making. It has its roots in second-wave feminism, which in the 1960s began reframing male strength as patriarchal oppression. By the ’80s and ’90s, freshly-minted gender studies departments were churning out theses that branded healthy male assertiveness “hegemonic.”
On television, the upstanding patriarch of “Father Knows Best” gave way to the beer-bellied, weak-willed Al Bundy. When clickbait culture arrived in the 2000s, every societal ill — from climate change to mass shootings — found a convenient culprit in “<a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/17/gun-violence-masculinity-216321/">traditional masculinity</a>.”
C.S. Lewis foresaw the danger. “We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise,” he warned in The Abolition of Man — adding the <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/113211-we-make-men-without-chests-and-expect-from-them-virtue?utm_source=chatgpt.com">punchline</a> our era can’t escape: “We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.”
The cultural costs are no laughing matter. Today, 17.6 million American children — nearly one in four — <a href="https://www.fatherhood.org/father-absence-statistic">grow up without a father in the home</a>. Their odds of suffering are grim: Barack Obama, citing Census data in 2008, <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2008/06/text-of-obamas-fatherhood-speech-011094?">noted</a> that such children are “five times more likely to live in poverty… nine times more likely to drop out of school, and 20 times more likely to end up in prison.”
If only he did something about it. 
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial&amp;utm_campaign=christmas&amp;utm_content=christmassale25">Christmas Sale &#8211; Get 40% off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships</a>
Almost 60 years earlier, Daniel Patrick Moynihan <a href="https://web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Moynihan%27s%20The%20Negro%20Family.pdf">sounded the same alarm</a>, saying, “the deterioration of the fabric of &#8230; society is the deterioration of the &#8230; family.” At the time, he was dismissed as an alarmist. The empty chairs around dinner tables prove him prophetic.
Classrooms reveal the next domino. The same ideology that pathologized masculine energy has left boys academically stranded. On the <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/reading/2022">2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress</a>, 8th-grade girls outread boys by nine scale points, continuing an unbroken gender gap that dates to 1992. Overall scores for both sexes hit the lowest level on record. 
College quads tell the same tale. Men have fallen to just <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/12/18/fewer-young-men-are-in-college-especially-at-4-year-schools/">44% of American undergraduates</a>, a gap that’s widened every year since 2011. UNESCO, surveying 140 countries, now calls boys’ lagging literacy a “<a href="https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/leave-no-child-behind-global-report-boys-disengagement-education">growing global crisis</a>.” Christina Hoff Sommers <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9334744-boys-today-bear-the-burden-of-several-powerful-cultural-trends">captures the cultural headwind:</a> a school climate that “valorizes feelings and denigrates competition and risk…views masculinity as predatory. Natural male exuberance is no longer tolerated.” 
Why did “toxic masculinity” stick? Because it performed a linguistic jujitsu: attach a moral defect to the identity you want to erase, then offer “liberation” through re-education. Courage degenerates into “aggression,” leadership into “oppression,” fatherhood into “patriarchal privilege.” The outcome is predictable: abolish the virtues that civilize male strength, then lament the violence or apathy that follows.
Yet the data refuse to cooperate with the narrative. Children with involved fathers are <a href="https://www.lakeconews.com/news/community/commentary/56433-delcol-happy-father-s-day">40% less likely to repeat a grade</a>, more likely to earn As, and far less prone to behavioral problems. Even the <a href="https://www.apa.org/about/policy/boys-men-practice-guidelines.pdf">APA guidelines</a> — often cited as proof of masculinity’s hazards — concede that male risk-taking can be “harnessed for good” when directed toward service and innovation.
Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child <a href="https://developingchild.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/The-Science-of-Resilience2.pdf">summarizes</a> decades of research showing that self-regulation and disciplined resilience — traits once labeled stoic — buffer children from stress and reduce lifetime mental-health risk. In other words, the same virtues our culture now brands “toxic” are the ones empirical science says we need.
Trust the science.
Conservatives bear some blame for this inversion. While we tallied marginal-tax victories, Hollywood and higher ed rewrote the story of manhood. Institutions we once guided — churches, Scouts, civic clubs — sat vacant as HR departments filled the void. The cockpit was empty. The Left merely climbed in and took control.
We didn’t arrive here by accident. The cultural collapse around masculinity wasn’t inevitable — it was permitted. While conservatives focused on policy wins and economic metrics, the Left waged a full-spectrum cultural campaign that redefined manhood itself. They infiltrated the classroom, the newsroom, and the writers&#8217; room. They turned moral virtue into pathology and repackaged fatherhood as oppression. And we let them. Not out of malice, but out of misplaced trust — that truth would prevail unaided, that tradition could defend itself, that boys would become men by default.
Now, we stand in the wreckage of that assumption. A generation of boys has been raised to doubt their instincts, to apologize for their strength, and to see their fathers as liabilities rather than legacies. This is not just a political failure — it’s a civilizational one. But it also means the stakes are finally clear. If the conservative movement wants to conserve anything worth passing down, it must begin with this: the restoration of masculine virtue. Not nostalgia. Not anger. But clarity. The recognition that the war on manhood is really a war on order, on protection, on the nuclear family.
We’re not at the end of this story — we’re at the hinge. The institutions may be hollow, the narratives poisoned, but the hunger for truth remains. And in that hunger lies our moment. Not to manage decline, but to name it. Not to tinker around the edges, but to tell the truth loudly enough that our sons can hear it. Before we rebuild, we must remember who we are — and what we allowed to be stolen in the dark.
Masculinity is not toxic — it’s virtuous. When we reclaim that distinction, we invite our sons to stand tall instead of apologizing for existing — and we give civilization the allies it deserves.
* * *
Gates Garcia is the host of the YouTube show and podcast &#8220;We The People.&#8221; Follow him on Instagram and X @GatesGarciaFL.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

New cowboy (1)

Best Of 2025: How The Left Hijacked Masculinity — And Why That’s Bad For Society

How The Left Hijacked Masculinity — And Why That’s Bad For Society

Feminism

Leftism

Toxic

Legendary singer Billy Joel said he always looked forward to being a father, in large part because his father left the family after divorcing his mother when he was just eight years old.
“It means a lot to me, and I think that&#8217;s maybe part of the father thing,” Joel told People during an <a href="https://people.com/billy-joel-says-he-was-looking-forward-to-fatherhood-all-my-life-exclusive-11777997">interview</a> published on Thursday. “I didn&#8217;t have a dad, so it was very important for me to be a dad.”
The 76-year-old “Piano Man” singer is a father of three, including daughter Alexa Ray, 39, whom he shares with his ex-wife, former model Christie Brinkley. Joel remarried for the fourth time in 2015 and had two more girls: Della, 9, and Remy, 7.
“I love all of my girls. And poetic justice, I had all girls, of course, but I’m really enjoying this a lot,” he told the outlet. “It’s something I was looking forward to all my life, and here I am.”
While Joel believed he was “too old” to have more children after marrying equestrian Alexis Roderick, he went on to have his youngest daughters at the ages of 66 and 68. 
“Having these little kids at this time in my life is such a joy,” Joel said in a documentary about his life, as the outlet noted. “I have time to be with them … I wanted to make sure that they got everything they needed from me, so I kind of knuckled down and took fatherhood very, very seriously.”
It’s a topic he’s visited before. In 2023, the “Uptown Girl” singer said he revels in being there for his kids.
“I wait around for the kids to come back from school. I love hanging out with my children,&#8221; he <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2023-03-08/billy-joel-piano-man-sofi-stadium-stevie-nicks">told</a> the Los Angeles Times. &#8220;They’re so much fun and so interesting to me. I get to be a stay-at-home dad. That’s how I enjoy my life these days.&#8221;
Joel, who was recently diagnosed with a brain condition affecting his balance and vision, is currently promoting his new HBO documentary series “Billy Joel: And So It Goes,” which includes details about his father leaving the family. The six-time Grammy Award winner said he tracked down his dad when he was in his early 20s and found him living in Vienna with a new family.
The singer told People he wished his dad were proud of him, but said they “never really made a strong connection … It’s disappointing.” 
Joel’s father passed away in 2011.

Billy Joel

‘Something I Was Looking Forward To All My Life’: Billy Joel Opens Up About Fatherhood

Billy Joel On Fatherhood: 'Something I Was Looking Forward To All My Life'

Celebrities

Entertainment

singer

U.S.

We all inherit a legacy from the men who came before us. Some of that legacy is good — sacrifice, protection, provision. Some of it is painful — absence, misunderstanding, or failure. As sons, it’s easy to focus on what our fathers didn’t give us. But if we stay there, we risk carrying that pain into the next generation. There’s a better option than blame or bitterness: forgiveness. We must let go of old wounds and decide what kind of fathers — and men — we want to become. Generational growth starts with generational grace.
It is easy to look back and critique what we think our father should have done differently without considering how he was raised, the relational dynamics between his parents, and the communication, leadership, or relationship skills he did or didn’t develop.
My dad and I struggled to connect on a deeper level for most of my life, but we found common ground in motorcycles. That became our language — our way of understanding each other when words fell short. Just before he passed, we told each other, “I love you.” And I believe with all my heart that if he had known how to do better by me, he would have — because he loved me.
Yet, like many men, he wrestled with the memory of the 35-year-old version of himself — the man he wished he had been. But there’s no victory in battling a version of ourselves that no longer exists. Forgiving others is hard; forgiving ourselves is often harder. That’s where grace steps in.
I know men who are currently battling their 35-year-old fathers. The problem is, their father is now in his 70s. Our fathers have had to grapple with their inadequacies and failures, just as we have had to find our path to overcome the effects of those shortcomings. But we must go further and forgive our fathers for the unintentional missteps in raising us.
Raising and providing for my own family has helped me see my father in a different light. As kids, we don’t realize what it takes to raise children or appreciate the degree of sacrifice it requires.
During a conversation with men in my small group, one of the guys said, “Being married is hard. Raising kids is hard.” There was a pause, and I asked, “Would you want it to be easy?” Every man said no, because there is no value without effort. There’s no value in easy. We put in the work because our families are worth it. That means accepting our shortcomings and learning from them.
As a 35-year-old father, I made mistakes. Looking back now, I see that those mistakes were the fuel that helped me grow. I didn’t like the man I saw in the mirror, so I decided that he had to change.
Your life is being recorded. Whether we recognize it or not, we are teaching our boys what it means to be good sons, brothers, husbands and fathers with every word we speak and action we do or don’t take. They internalize how a marriage should function, how a man should talk and act. They are learning how to take care of others and what a God-centered family looks like. They are inclined to mimic us, and one day, they’ll play that footage back.
Realizing this is humbling and compels this exhortation to forgive our fathers. We can’t let the mistakes they made rob us from enjoying what they did correctly. That’s a lesson I hope my son has learned.
I’ve chosen not to judge my father by the missteps of his younger self. When he died, he wasn’t 35 — he was in his sixties, and by then, he was a good man. A man who had grown, who had tried, and who had loved the best way he knew how.
Carrying around unforgiveness is like me carrying around a hundred-pound backpack. I can’t play with my kids or show up for my family in the ways they need me when I’m lugging around the baggage of my past. They would be getting less the father they deserve and a more restricted, and exhausted shell of myself. To be all that I was created by God to be and to live with intention and purpose in the design of fatherhood, I must shed the unnecessary weight of unforgiveness.
Forgiveness doesn’t come naturally. It requires grace — a strength beyond ourselves. It calls us to let go of past pain and offenses, not once, but daily. It&#8217;s a continual act of surrender that frees us to move forward.
You are not the 35-year-old version of your father. You’re a new man — shaped by his story, refined by grace and guided by a higher calling. Forgive your father. Honor his journey, but don’t repeat his missteps. It’s time to lead with faith, wisdom, and redemption.
* * *
This article is adapted from “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Return-Man-Americas-Only-Original/dp/B0DPBWLQJB">The Return of Man: America’s Only Hope is in our Original Hope</a>.”
Jimmy Graham, CEO of <a href="https://ableshepherd.com/">Able Shepherd</a>, is a veteran Navy SEAL and former CIA Global Response Staff Protective Officer with over two decades of experience in high-risk environments worldwide. He is author of “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Return-Man-Americas-Only-Original/dp/B0DPBWLQJB">The Return of Man</a>.”
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Menu