What Nobody Tells You About Being a Young Dad in India

Indian fatherhood has an image problem. The cultural template: the father provides (financially), disciplines (occasionally), and appears at festivals and family photographs. The emotional labor — feeding, soothing, night wakings, doctor visits, school research, developmental tracking — is gendered as "mother's work." When an Indian father is actively involved in childcare, the response is: "Oh, how nice — he's helping!" Helping. As though his own children are someone else's responsibility and his involvement is charitable assistance.

The Isolation of the Involved Dad

Parenting groups in India are overwhelmingly mother-centric. The WhatsApp groups, the Facebook communities, the local playgroups — they're "mothers' groups" by name and culture. Joining as a dad feels like entering a space where you're tolerated but not expected. The conversations assume a mother's perspective: breastfeeding (can't contribute), dealing with in-laws who judge parenting choices (different dynamic for dads), and managing household help (often gendered differently for fathers).

The result: involved dads in India often parent without a peer community. No "dad group" to share experiences with. No culturally normalized space where men discuss the emotional challenges of fatherhood — the anxiety when your child is sick, the guilt when work takes you away from bedtime, the identity shift from "individual" to "father" that is simultaneously the most important and least discussed transition of a man's life.

The Workplace Gap

Indian paternity leave: typically 5-15 days in progressive companies, zero in many others. Compare to Indian maternity leave: 26 weeks mandatory under the Maternity Benefit Act. The message is clear: mothers bond with babies, fathers return to work. This structural inequality creates a foundational imbalance in parenting involvement — the mother, by virtue of 6 months at home, becomes the "expert parent," while the father, returning to work within days, becomes the "secondary parent" by default rather than by choice.

With twins, this default was untenable. Two infants require two full-time caregivers, especially in the first 3 months. I negotiated extended work-from-home, used every leave day available, and explicitly told my team: "I will be less available for the next 3 months because I'm an equally responsible parent, not an assistant parent." The response was mixed: admiration from younger colleagues, confusion from older ones who couldn't comprehend why a father would reduce work capacity for childcare "that the mother handles."

The Generational Shift

My father's generation of Indian dads: present but distant. Providers but not nurturers. Love expressed through sacrifice and provision, not through physical affection, emotional availability, or hands-on care. This model worked (children survived and thrived) — but it created a generation of adults who love their fathers while feeling they don't know them.

My generation is different — not universally, but noticeably. We want to: be present for bedtime routines (not just income contribution), understand our children's emotional states (not just their academic progress), share the operational load of parenting (not just "help when asked"), and express love through presence, play, and daily involvement (not just through festival gifts and tuition payments).

This shift creates friction with the previous generation. "You're too involved — let the mother handle it." "In our time, fathers didn't change diapers." "You're spoiling them by holding them so much." The comments come from a place of their experience — and their experience was valid for their context. But our context is different: we're parenting in an era where research overwhelmingly shows that father involvement improves children's cognitive, emotional, and social development.

What I Want My Twins to See

When my twins grow up, I want their memory of fatherhood to include: dad cooking dinner, not just eating it. Dad at pediatrician appointments, not just paying the bill. Dad reading bedtime stories, not just saying goodnight from the living room. Dad crying at a sad movie, not performing stoic invulnerability. Dad and mom as equal partners, not as provider and caretaker.

This isn't a criticism of previous generations — it's an evolution informed by their sacrifices and our opportunities. The Indian fathers who worked 12-hour days to afford their children's education made this generation's choices possible. We honor that sacrifice by taking the financial security they created and adding the emotional availability they couldn't provide. Not better fathers. Different fathers. Fathers for a different time.