Quote · Modern Wisdom
The Painful Psychological Cost Of Becoming A Dad - Darby Saxbe - #1129
Where this was said
Why Becoming a Father Is the Ultimate Masculine Role
At 47:01 · chapter starts 46:44
The testosterone conversation reaches its philosophical core: what is masculinity actually for? Saxbe's answer is unambiguous — not a hormone level, but a social role. [1] — Darby Saxbe "I would argue that being a good dad is one of the most manly things you can do. You're literally rearing the next generation. You're guidin…" 47:35 Being a good dad means guiding, protecting, inspiring, and teaching the next generation; that is, she argues, what masculine capacity is evolutionarily designed for. Maintaining artificially high testosterone while suppressing the natural adaptation to fatherhood is, as Chris Williamson puts it, a 'horrendous own goal' that risks ending your lineage in the name of signalling the very thing it destroys. The conversation broadens to the parallel pressure on mothers — the 'bounce back after baby' culture that treats parenthood as an inconvenience to be reversed rather than a transformation to be embraced — and Saxbe's view that contemporary society catastrophically under-values caregiving as a public good.
