"They seemed like ideal infant-caregivers: calm, gentle, patient and sensitive. They didn’t seem like men you would go to battle with. In fact, they were the very antithesis of the warriors and athletes – think Maximus, Achilles or Michael Jordan – often associated with a masculine ideal."
I became a father quite a bit before most of my friends, and so was the butt of some jokes about masculinity for the way I parented (purely just the poking fun between good, old friends), but perhaps as a result of fatherhood, where my former reaction to those jokes would have been embarrassment, my new reaction was to think that my friends were childish for not being able to understand how it felt to be a father who loved his children.
Also, somewhat ironic, but my willingness to "go to battle" for my family is far greater than my willingness to "go to battle" for anything before having a family, to an extent that becoming a father has made me far more assertive, confident, and willing to take responsibility, which makes me more "masculine" if you so happen to define masculinity that way...
I became a father quite a bit before most of my friends, and so was the butt of some jokes about masculinity for the way I parented (purely just the poking fun between good, old friends), but perhaps as a result of fatherhood, where my former reaction to those jokes would have been embarrassment, my new reaction was to think that my friends were childish for not being able to understand how it felt to be a father who loved his children.
Also, somewhat ironic, but my willingness to "go to battle" for my family is far greater than my willingness to "go to battle" for anything before having a family, to an extent that becoming a father has made me far more assertive, confident, and willing to take responsibility, which makes me more "masculine" if you so happen to define masculinity that way...