Stop Blaming Fathers: The ‘Experts’ Are Getting It All Wrong

Modern dads did everything right. So why are they being scapegoated for a crisis no one saw coming?

I’ve met thousands of parents of trans identified children, mothers and fathers, through my voluntary work with a parent support group over the past seven years. All of them are desperate to understand what’s happening to their kids in a world where gender identity has taken centre stage. I’m not an observer. I’m one of them. My own son declared a trans identity out of the blue, and thankfully, he has since desisted. What I witnessed throughout that journey revealed something disturbing, especially in families like ours: progressive, hands-on, open minded, and now blindsided.

What I’ve seen again and again is this: fathers are not absent. They are present, hands on, emotionally engaged, and still, somehow, they’re being blamed.

In many of the families I’ve met, the fathers are not the distant breadwinners of generations past. Men of earlier generations were typically seen and expected to be providers, not nurturers. Their role in the family was defined by economic responsibility and emotional reserve. They worked long hours in physically demanding or high pressure jobs and came home expecting peace and order, not emotional connection. Parenting, especially the hands on kind, was considered women’s work. Feeding babies, changing nappies, soothing a crying child, these were seen as maternal tasks. If a father spent time with his children, it was usually through discipline, teaching practical skills, or the occasional outing, not the day to day caregiving that forms emotional bonds.

These men were shaped by cultures that discouraged vulnerability. They were taught to be stoic, authoritative, strong, not soft, expressive, or emotionally available. Many were raised by fathers who were even more distant, traumatised by war, poverty, or rigid cultural norms. Love was rarely spoken aloud. It was implied through provision and protection. For many children, a father’s love looked like a roof over their heads and food on the table, but little eye contact, no physical affection, and a strict code of behaviour.

But over the past generation, something shifted. A new model of fatherhood emerged, one that encouraged emotional presence, caregiving, and involvement. The fathers of trans identified kids weren’t holding themselves at arm’s length. They were doing school runs, bedtime routines, homework, bath time. They were deeply involved in their children’s lives, especially when the mother was working, either out of necessity or because she took the career lead.

These men didn’t resist the cultural shift. They embraced it. They stepped up, leaned in, and gave everything they had to their families. Sometimes that was due to financial pressure. Sometimes the mother had a more secure or higher paid job. Thanks to the rise of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) policies, many women gained opportunities previous generations could never have imagined, becoming CEOs, surgeons, partners, leaders. And that’s not a bad thing. But it has reshaped the dynamics at home. As women moved into the provider role, many men, especially those who saw themselves as equal partners, took on more of the caregiving. They cooked. They cuddled. They took parental leave. They gave baths, wiped tears, packed lunches. Society praised the shift. The media portrayed it as a triumph.

We saw it on screen. In Kramer vs. Kramer, we watched a man transform from a detached professional into a devoted single father. The Pursuit of Happyness followed a man surviving on the streets with his son, refusing to give up. In Fatherhood (2021), Kevin Hart played a widower learning to be both mother and father. These stories reflected what was happening in real homes. Fathers weren’t just showing up, they were redefining presence.

And yet, this very shift, which society asked for, may also be contributing to the confusion many children now feel about identity.

Until very recently, every major school of psychology, from Freud’s psychoanalysis to Jung’s archetypal theory, from Bowlby’s attachment theory to Erikson’s model of psychosocial development, agreed on one foundational truth: children form identity by observing and internalising the distinct, complementary roles of their mother and father. These weren’t interchangeable positions or vague preferences. They were rooted in biological and psychological differences between the sexes.

Traditionally, the father represented structure, authority, and outward facing engagement with the world, the bridge between the child and external reality. The mother was associated with nurture, emotional attunement, and inner emotional regulation, the harbour from which a child could explore. These roles, masculine and feminine, firm and soft, risk and safety, offered polarity. And that polarity helped children orient themselves.

It wasn’t rigid gender stereotyping. It was a developmental necessity.

Psychologists have long understood that children don’t just need love, they need to experience love expressed in different, complementary ways. Boys, in particular, need to see what healthy masculinity looks like, not just through words, but through embodied behaviour. Girls need to witness femininity as both strong and tender. These contrasts aren’t about power or hierarchy, they are about orientation and guidance. From Bowlby’s attachment theory to Bandura’s social learning theory, the evidence is consistent: children learn who they are and how to relate to others by observing the differences between their parents. The mother often represents nurture, emotional availability, and safety, while the father brings challenge, structure, and engagement with the outside world. These roles, when clearly modelled, help a child form internal maps for identity, behaviour, and emotional regulation. Without this polarity, children are more likely to feel disoriented, unsure of themselves, and vulnerable to external influences. This is not abstract theory. It is foundational psychology, confirmed over decades of research, and it has been all but erased in favour of ideology.

We stripped children of their compass, replaced it with ideology, and now we’re watching the fallout in real time.

In the families I’ve spoken to, the father is often the emotional anchor. The child adores him. But as caregiving fathers take on traditionally maternal roles, children are left without a clear sense of what it means to become a man or woman. I’m not saying this is the sole cause of gender confusion, far from it. But after thousands of conversations, and my own painful experience, I believe it’s a contributing factor we’re refusing to see.

While these patterns are common, I have also noticed important differences between families of trans identified boys and girls. In many cases, the families of boys are intact, progressive, two parent households where the father is fully present and involved. But with girls, I have more frequently seen family breakdown, especially divorce or separation. This is not true in every case, but it comes up often enough to warrant attention. When a father is largely absent, whether physically or emotionally, a girl may be left without a strong, stable model of masculinity during key developmental stages. In these situations, a trans identity can sometimes emerge not just from inner distress, but as a way to gain security, attention, or belonging in a fractured environment.

Even in separated families, I have seen fathers continue in the caregiving role, cooking, attending school events, managing routines, taking on traditionally maternal responsibilities out of love, duty, or necessity. But without a shared household or aligned parental roles, this can deepen a child's confusion rather than bring stability. Add to that the problem of triangulation, where one parent affirms and the other resists, and the result is often a daughter caught in the middle, emotionally displaced and vulnerable to external influence.

Then the child comes out as trans.

And what happens?

The father, who has given his heart and soul to raising this child, withdraws.

Why?

Because he’s biologically wired to respond to confusion or threat by stepping back, surveying, protecting. Not by panicking, overtalking, or instantly adjusting his behaviour. He doesn’t stop caring. He just doesn't rush to join the support groups or read fifty books and countless articles. He waits. He watches. He feels shut out.

Meanwhile, the mother shifts into overdrive. She’s wired to protect her child from harm. She joins the groups. She reads every book. She listens to the therapists, the teachers, the social workers, many of whom are pushing a single narrative.

And this is where families start to fracture.

We’re being undermined by the very systems meant to support us:

• Teachers socially transitioning children behind parents’ backs

• Mental health professionals driving a wedge between parents

• Social workers triangulating and labelling disagreement as harm

• Parental alienation setting in, where one parent is seen as “supportive” and the other as “unsafe”

Then, when everything explodes, the blame lands on the father.

He didn’t show up. He wasn’t emotionally available. He must have been absent. Let me say this clearly: that’s a lie.

Fathers have never been more involved. But when crisis hits, they are reacting exactly how men have always reacted: with protectiveness, caution, silence. It’s not abandonment. It’s biology.

As a parent who has walked this path and come out the other side, I’ve seen this pattern repeat again and again:

• A progressive home

• A role reversal due to economics or ideology

• A child, often sensitive, intelligent, sometimes neurodivergent or prone to black and white thinking, becomes confused about identity

• The mother becomes the activist

• The father disappears, not because he doesn’t care, but because he’s no longer allowed to lead

We’ve lost something essential in this culture. We’ve forgotten how children develop. We’ve thrown away insights rooted in biology, attachment, and parental complementarity. In trying to liberate ourselves from outdated roles, we’ve created confusion and instability. And our children are paying the price.

Worst of all, we’re scapegoating the very fathers who tried to do everything right. Who fed the baby. Who took time off work. Who attended every play and gave every piggyback ride. And now they’re told they were never there.

It has to stop.

This narrative that absent fathers are the root cause of everything from addiction to gender confusion is gaining traction. It’s echoed in powerful interviews like the one given by Adam B. Coleman, who speaks movingly about his own fatherlessness and its long-term impact. His message resonates because it’s real. Father absence does matter. But I’ve written this article precisely because I see something else, something happening now, in progressive, intact families with devoted dads, that doesn't fit that narrative at all.

In the world of gender ideology, the opposite is often true, fathers are deeply involved, emotionally present, and still being sidelined, not by absence, but by a culture that no longer values them. You can watch Adam’s discussion here, and understand why I felt compelled to offer a counterpoint: Adam Coleman Wants To Make Fathers Great Again (#37)

Fathers aren’t the problem. In many cases, they’re the broken heart of the solution, pushed aside by a culture that no longer understands how much children need them.

Children don’t just need care. They need clarity. They need structure. They need the grounding presence of both a mother and a father. Let’s stop pretending otherwise.