Dads Are the New Moms. How’s That Going?
American men are doing more parenting than at any other time in modern history. What does that really mean for work, marriage, friendship, and sex?
.webp)
It’s the summer of 2025, and the dads are talking. Really talking. More than anyone expected. On playground benches and Zoom calls and in coffee shops where they’ve negotiated 45 minutes of freedom, they’re opening up—about loneliness, about how brutal the early months were, about postpartum mood crashes, love lives that stalled, and marriages that had to be rebuilt. They laugh at themselves, cry a little, apologize for crying, then keep going.
And honestly? It feels overdue.
More dads are staying home with kids now than ever—Pew says nearly one in five stay-at-home parents are fathers, almost double the share a few decades ago. Women’s earnings have risen, workplaces have changed, and the pandemic forced a massive reset in who handles care work. A lot of dads ended up deeply involved in family life for the first time—and it stuck.
So how’s it going? Well, once you ask the dads, the floodgates open.
They talk about everything: addiction, mental health, complicated fathers of their own, miscarriages, unplanned pregnancies, stigma, masculinity, money, sex, and what it feels like to be the only dad at the playground getting side-eyed by moms who assume he’s lost.
They talk about cultural judgment—Latino dads questioned for doing “women’s work,” Black dads getting praise that feels a little too eager, gay dads navigating care work without gender templates. They talk about being shut out of parent groups, out of social circles, out of their own marriages for stretches of time.
And they talk about wanting—really wanting—a life that feels meaningful, not just functional.
Take Matt, a former chef in Durham who used to work crazy restaurant hours and drink too much. When he and his wife, Angela, had their first child, it made sense that he’d stay home—she had the more stable career. But the transition wrecked him. Early parenthood hit harder than any 10-hour shift. His drinking got worse until a doctor told him he was risking his life. Sobriety then pushed him further from his old community, and the loneliness was crushing.
But eventually he found a stay-at-home dads’ convention—basically a room full of guys who immediately understood. No one cared what he “did for a living.” They just talked. After that, he finally started owning the title: stay-at-home dad.
Still, COVID almost broke him. With Angela in a psychiatric ER every day and him alone with two kids, he felt guilty even admitting he was drowning. It took a friend calling his wife to get him help. Afterwards, they rebuilt their daily routines, carved out real time for Matt’s own life, and made things workable again.
And through all of it, Matt insists—like nearly every dad I talk to—that none of this compares to what his wife went through physically and emotionally. The dads are careful to say this. They’re hyperaware of not stealing empathy. But their struggles are real too, and nearly invisible.
Sex comes up a lot, but the dads ease into it. They talk about intimacy and love languages before anyone dares say “busted nut.” Some are embarrassed, some defensive, some joking. Many admit that sex can disappear almost completely, and getting it back takes scheduling, effort, childcare, and communication. Some dads admit they’re the ones whose sex drive tanked—they were “touched out,” overwhelmed by kids hanging on them all day.
Others say the power dynamic shifts: some wives lose respect when a husband stops earning money; some dads lose themselves in the grind of housework and childcare. And some couples—like Jeremy and Jenn in Illinois—don’t get back on track until they tackle birth control, testosterone issues, therapy, grief, and basically rebuild their relationship from scratch.
For Jeremy and Jenn, it took a vasectomy, testosterone therapy, schedule-setting, weekly date nights, karaoke nights, a kink checklist, and daily check-ins. And now, 14 years in, they’re thriving.
Friendships are another sore spot. Many dads lose their entire social world. Their buddies don’t have kids, or moved to the suburbs, or just don’t get it. Meeting other dads often feels like dating. But when they do click, it’s life-saving.
In Central Park, a bunch of New York dads push swings, talk Knicks and crypto, change diapers on benches, and trade stories about special-ed battles, divorces, and the loneliness no one wants to admit out loud. One dad whispers to me—literally whispers—that he’s been afraid to say he’s lonely because he doesn’t want to erase what mothers go through.
Money is another quiet crisis. Many dads don’t feel entitled to spend anything on themselves. Even when their wives insist it’s family money, the dads feel like they’re living on someone else’s paycheck.
Jake, an English dad living in the U.S., left his job to care for his son with cerebral palsy. He handles school battles, therapy schedules, cooking, all the logistics. He and his wife have burned through savings, taken on debt, and faced the strain of two people whose entire life revolves around a child who needs them constantly. They’ve considered separating but can’t see how it would work. There is simply no space.
He’s proud of what he does, but it’s taken years to stop introducing himself by apologizing for it.
As for the moms, according to the dads, they’re stressed too—but many are doing their best to reassure the guys that their work matters. The moms want the dads to feel ownership, to feel valued, to feel free to spend money on themselves again.
And the kids? The kids are wonderful. Thriving, bright, cared for, loved. The dads are doing a good job—even when they can’t see it.
The hope is that as the kids grow up, the dads will get some of themselves back. Time to breathe. Time to rediscover who they are outside diapers and therapy appointments and field days. Time to figure out how to be both fathers and men with their own identities.
They’ll get there. Just not alone.