"...they occupy roughly the same status in their households as the help."

a href=”http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124243950942426191.html”WSJ: From Patriach to Patsy:/a A father of three young children discovers the humiliations of being a modern dad (thanks to reader Dave):br /br /blockquoteIn the most affluent parts of the Western world, a historic transference of power has taken place that is greater than anything achieved by the trade-union movement, the women’s movement or the civil-rights movement — and it hasn’t even been extended the courtesy of being called a movement. Fathers, who enjoyed absolute authority within the household for several millennia, now find themselves at the beck and call of their wives and children. Indeed, most of my male friends are not fathers in any traditional sense at all; they occupy roughly the same status in their households as the help. They don’t guide their children through the moral quandaries of life — they guide them to their extracurricular activities from behind the wheel of a Dodge minivan….br /br /a href=”http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/039306901X?ie=UTF8tag=insta0c-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=039306901X”emHome Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood/em,/aimg src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=insta0c-20l=as2o=1a=039306901X” width=”1″ height=”1″ border=”0″ alt=”” style=”border:none !important; margin:0px !important;” /Mr. Lewis’s account of becoming a father to his three children, begins promisingly. “At some point in the last few decades, the American male sat down at the negotiating table with the American female and — let us be frank — got fleeced,” he writes.br /br /The poor sucker agreed to take on responsibility for all sorts of menial tasks — tasks that his own father was barely aware of — and received nothing in return. If he was hoping for some gratitude, he was mistaken. According to Mr. Lewis: “Women may smile at a man pushing a baby stroller, but it is with the gentle condescension of a high officer of an army toward a village that surrendered without a fight.”/blockquote