Myths of Manhood: Breaking Dad, Fracking Fatherhood

Hadley, Robin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4254-7648 (2019) Myths of Manhood: Breaking Dad, Fracking Fatherhood. Male Psychology Network website.

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Abstract

“Men can have children at any time in their lives.” “Men aren’t bothered about being a dad.” These statements are often made, without really considering how much truth there is in them. These statements are often overheard by me and many other men who are childless-but-wanted-to-be-dads. Unfortunately, the belief that men are not interested in reproduction is widely held in the public and across the social sciences. Marcia Inhorn et al (2009) argue that men have become the ‘second sex’, in all areas of scholarship because of the ‘widely held but largely untested assumption’ that men are not interested and disengaged from, reproductive intentions and outcomes’ (Inhorn 2012: 6). The reality for men who don’t conform to the ideal of fatherhood is very different than many people realise. The majority of men are fertile from puberty onwards typically with sperm in constant production. However, there is increasing evidence that sperm is affected by the day-to-day environment – diet, heat, and stress all adversely affect sperm (Li et al. 2011). Moreover, sperm declines in efficacy from about the age of 35 years onward with a positive correlation between age and genetic issues (Yatsenko and Turek 2018).