> "generationally, [men] seem to have (quietly) decided that we don't want to be like our absent fathers -- that we want to be home for dinner and available on weekends."

Maybe we're not as physically absent, but I'm having a hard time seeing the younger generation of fathers as being any more present in a practical sense, given the "online and accessible" work-culture we've pioneered.

Whereas Boomer fathers sometimes worked nights and weekends, at least when they showed up for the big game, they were more-likely-than-not watching it. X-ers are barely watching even when we're recording it. And I think it's open question as to whether "sometimes dad has to go in to work" is necessarily worse than "whenever I'm with dad our time is likely to be interrupted by his having to deal with work".

Maybe by raising a generation of compulsive messengers this will just seem normal to them and not like a plague on family time. But for me? I don't see it as an improvement at all. It looks like a step backwards.

(And truly, not every X-er gave into this culture but -- generationally -- always-on is certainly the trend and looks to be the norm from where I'm sitting.)

I don't know, personally I think I would have benefitted from being able to see a father-figure-type-person doing their thing, even if that meant having to check his phone during the big game, etc. Hopefully a good parent would do so in a balanced way, and the kid would pick up good habits and expectations about what it really means to be a polite and functioning person of the time. IOW, my vote would be for my father (or any theoretical parent) to have been present and leading by example, even if part of that leading is about the necessary evil of being "online and accessible" all the time.

A "good" old-school parent would ideally have limited after-hours work as much as was reasonably possible and imparted solid lessons about meeting commitments without compromising family values as well. All of that sounds like a separate consideration.

The question at hand is more: assume X hours of 'overtime' work needs to be done: would we rather have that chunk be composed of unpredictable interruptions of unpredictable length through any and all 'family' time? Or gathered up into larger, fixed chunks of extra 'at work' time with advanced warning, discrete start/end times, etc?

This.

The Last Psychiatrist has an excellent article about why women are encouraged to become like "work-consumed men from a generation ago". You might find it interesting.

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/03/dont_hate_her_because...

From that article:

My personal vote for Lean In valedictorian is the woman at the bottom left, I don't know her life or her medication history but she has the diagnostic sign of her cuff pulled up over her wrist in what I call "the borderline sleeve," that girl will have endlessly whipsawing emotions and a lot of enthusiastic ideas that will ultimately result in a something borrowed/something blue. Hope her future ex enjoys drama, he's in for seven years of it.

What? Awesome, the authoress is judging a person in a PR shot from a cut-off view of their arm from behind. OK, I am done reading these articles for today.

> You're going to try and counter that this is a staged publicity photo, but my rum makes me fearless against your rebuttals.

If only you had read one sentence further...

That article was extremely politically incorrect, often offensive, and deliberately abrasive.

And it also raised a lot of interesting and thought provoking ideas.

Not the OP, but thanks for the link. As a guy I was a little bit saddened by the "choose a husband very carefully"-part, I see that the Last Psychiatrist addresses that in a very compelling way.

That was a truly great article, thank you.