Bowen, there is a lot in this chapter that resonates with me. I'm about to turn 48 in September, and I gave up alcohol a little over a month ago. Even in moderate amounts, it seemed to interfere with my sleep. And I became increasingly aware that reaching for a drink or two at happy hour was a crutch of sorts, even if it never led to excess. I much prefer the feeling that I'm only putting good things into my body and purging the bad, usually on the bike, in my running shoes, or in the gym.
But your post also goes to the larger existential stressors that life in America brings. And the particular struggle you faced in contemplating fatherhood is one of those. I don't think men are terrified of fatherhood because they can't imagine themselves as caregivers. It's that they can't see a place for themselves in the working world that harmonizes with a caregiving role. It feels like a zero sum proposition: be an alpha at work and depend on a spouse for caregiving or give up ambition and embrace a traditionally feminine role. Women feel this pressure, too. Everyone feels like they can't be good at their job and good at parenting. This causes an incredible amount of stress. It's also linked to American rootlessness. In cultures where caregiving is shared among an extended family, rather than being the relentless obligation of one or two parents, the stakes for starting a family feel different.
wow, same age, the magic forty-eight. interesting coincidence. I'd be super interested to hear more about your giving up alcohol... Easy? Not so?
Your experience with running and drinking sounds exactly like mine—and like Murakami's and smoking. Running came first, and then the good feeling of running leads one to stop doing things that get in the way of that. I mentioned this in Notes, but for folks here — I had never gotten around to reading Murakami’s memoir about running What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I just finished it, and I found it super relatable, inspiring, and also very soothing. His writing voice does that for me. I loved it.
I totally agree about the "larger existential stressors" related to the question of fatherhood and not seeing myself wanting to find a place in the working world "that harmonizes with a caregiving role" as you put it was def part of my decision (unconscious, and then conscious) not to have kids. I was against participating in the system from the start, and I only did so as much as I had to to get out, really. Although there were other reasons as well, one could say that I sacrificed fatherhood in exchange for not playing the game. I agree that women feel the pressure too. There's a very vocal and seemingly growing 'movement' of women who are choosing not to have kids, for many of these same reasons. Great interview on @Meghan Daum 's podcast https://open.substack.com/pub/meghandaum/p/dont-have-kids-if-you-dont-want-them
My take is, yes, American rootlessness, and also even more broadly that we've created a world that is trying to kill us. As happy as I am without kids, not having them is also a sort of death. Talk about an existential dilemma. Aka: We. Are. So. Totally. Fucked, as a society, that although I still hold out as an optimist on the time scale of eras and aeons, in the range of human lives and generations, not so much, at least not in terms of society and culture.
Yeah depression is definitely not something that just randomly happens in the brain, most often theres something in life that brings it on. Of course the chemicals and their interactions matter, but I wish our mental health world were more attuned to the social and material environments our brains are living in.
Bowen, there is a lot in this chapter that resonates with me. I'm about to turn 48 in September, and I gave up alcohol a little over a month ago. Even in moderate amounts, it seemed to interfere with my sleep. And I became increasingly aware that reaching for a drink or two at happy hour was a crutch of sorts, even if it never led to excess. I much prefer the feeling that I'm only putting good things into my body and purging the bad, usually on the bike, in my running shoes, or in the gym.
But your post also goes to the larger existential stressors that life in America brings. And the particular struggle you faced in contemplating fatherhood is one of those. I don't think men are terrified of fatherhood because they can't imagine themselves as caregivers. It's that they can't see a place for themselves in the working world that harmonizes with a caregiving role. It feels like a zero sum proposition: be an alpha at work and depend on a spouse for caregiving or give up ambition and embrace a traditionally feminine role. Women feel this pressure, too. Everyone feels like they can't be good at their job and good at parenting. This causes an incredible amount of stress. It's also linked to American rootlessness. In cultures where caregiving is shared among an extended family, rather than being the relentless obligation of one or two parents, the stakes for starting a family feel different.
wow, same age, the magic forty-eight. interesting coincidence. I'd be super interested to hear more about your giving up alcohol... Easy? Not so?
Your experience with running and drinking sounds exactly like mine—and like Murakami's and smoking. Running came first, and then the good feeling of running leads one to stop doing things that get in the way of that. I mentioned this in Notes, but for folks here — I had never gotten around to reading Murakami’s memoir about running What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I just finished it, and I found it super relatable, inspiring, and also very soothing. His writing voice does that for me. I loved it.
I totally agree about the "larger existential stressors" related to the question of fatherhood and not seeing myself wanting to find a place in the working world "that harmonizes with a caregiving role" as you put it was def part of my decision (unconscious, and then conscious) not to have kids. I was against participating in the system from the start, and I only did so as much as I had to to get out, really. Although there were other reasons as well, one could say that I sacrificed fatherhood in exchange for not playing the game. I agree that women feel the pressure too. There's a very vocal and seemingly growing 'movement' of women who are choosing not to have kids, for many of these same reasons. Great interview on @Meghan Daum 's podcast https://open.substack.com/pub/meghandaum/p/dont-have-kids-if-you-dont-want-them
My take is, yes, American rootlessness, and also even more broadly that we've created a world that is trying to kill us. As happy as I am without kids, not having them is also a sort of death. Talk about an existential dilemma. Aka: We. Are. So. Totally. Fucked, as a society, that although I still hold out as an optimist on the time scale of eras and aeons, in the range of human lives and generations, not so much, at least not in terms of society and culture.
Thanks for reading and commenting Josh!
For reference, I wrote about this quite a bit more in The Man Pays → https://open.substack.com/pub/bowendwelle/p/the-man-pays —
and.. here are a bunch of my pieces relating to alcohol:
https://bowendwelle.substack.com/archive?sort=search&search=alcohol
Yeah depression is definitely not something that just randomly happens in the brain, most often theres something in life that brings it on. Of course the chemicals and their interactions matter, but I wish our mental health world were more attuned to the social and material environments our brains are living in.
caught a typo, thx