Men find meaning in one role — provider.

Any deviation from the model is seen as second best or underachieving. Adoption is something you do after pregnancy doesn’t work out. Being a single parent only happens when you can’t keep or find a partner. Divorce is a failure. A rental is where you live until you’ve gotten your down payment together. Unmarried couples are asked, “When are you ge

(The nuclear family structured around a male breadwinner was in fact of recent invention, arising in the 1920s and peaking in the 1950s and 1960s; before then, multigenerational families relying on multiple contributors to the family economy had been the norm.)

Once the Millennials came along, two-income families became more acknowledged and accepted, and more childcare became available.