Fathering is the most masculine thing a man can do.

Why do otherwise sane, competent, strong men, men who can wrestle bears or raid corporations, shrink away in horror at the thought of washing a dish or changing a diaper?

No one, however powerful and successful, can function as an adult if his parents are not satisfied with him.

Nothing is quite so horrifying and paralyzing as to win the Oedipal struggle and to be awarded your mother as the prize.

As boys without bonds to their fathers grow older and more desperate about their masculinity, they are in danger of forming gangs in which they strut their masculinity for one another, often overdo it, and sometimes turn to displays of fierce, macho bravado and even violence.

Becoming Father the Nurturer rather than just Father the Provider enables a man to fully feel and express his humanity and his masculinity. Fathering is the most masculine thing a man can do.

Parents have subtle ways of humbling you, of reminding you of your origins, perhaps by showing up at the moment of your greatest glory and reminding you where you came from and demonstrating that you still have some of it between your toes.