The story: French TV presenter France Pierron threw a fit because Jérémy Doku, a World Cup winger (apparently a soccer position and not an exotic bird/dragonfly), took a leave of absence from the tournament to witness the birth of his son.
You’re leaving just to cut an umbilical cord? . . . Hundreds of footballers would do anything to be in your position. . . . And you’re going to throw it all away just to attend your child’s birth?
It’s a moment where the father isn’t really needed. He has a symbolic role. You hold her hand and take a photo. . . . [It] is a disgusting moment, excuse my language, where the father is useless, he’s just an extra.
Pierron came under withering criticism, even from her own outlet, and issued a brittle non-apology. But I say no need. I’m here to defend her, at least a little.
I’ve cut four umbilical cords and will cut my fifth (out of six) in a few weeks. I’ve typed blood, managed placentas, and guided a baby out. I also block off evenings with my wife to teach pregnant couples how to birth their babies together, with the dad leading. The first thing we teach fathers is that a successful birth requires more from them than just holding a hand, taking a photo, or even cutting the cord.
Cutting the cord is ceremonial, a token. It’s not even necessary.
From there comes a harder lesson: for most of Western society, Perrion’s description of ceremonial, token perinatal fatherhood, however brusquely presented, is accurate. In the labor and delivery room, even her detractors would struggle to imagine anything more. But there must be more if we hope to get past the birth dearth panicking our cultural commentariat, and if Catholic fathers hope to pass on the Faith to their children.
The importance of motherhood is easier to perceive because we still notice when it’s compromised. For decades, we’ve heard the refrain that women “really can have it all,” and witnessed the collapse of their happiness as they try to be 100 percent mother and 100 percent worker. But decades before Gloria Steinem, men “couldn’t have it all” first—slaving away in coal mines and then factories and then cubicles. They glanced at the sleeping child in the morning before work and again upon returning home after bedtime.
For men, “career first, second, always” is taken for granted. We don’t need a scientific study (though we do have one) to intuit that children whose dads practice the Faith seriously are likelier to practice it as well. (In the linked study, mothers’ religious practices made no difference.) But how can children see their father practicing his faith when he is rarely home? I know a father who abandoned Mass for over a decade because he determined that Sunday was the only day his job allowed him to catch up on home obligations. Most of the dads I know with paternity leave (if they are offered it to begin with) will be fired if they use it. COVID lockdowns forced spouses to reunite on weekdays, and many of them did not enjoy it. And we wonder why the next generation eschews religion, marriage, and parenthood.
A man’s child, his family, is more important than his job. His family must be central, with the job orbiting it and subservient to it. Contra the impoverished view of France Perrion and her critics, the best births and the happiest wives are made from husbands who lead and protect them—not just at the birth, but through the labor, through the pregnancy, through the whole raising and education of that child.
“Are you saying a man can’t work?” Of course not—only that his family deserves the most and the best of him. If he wants to work harder than that—say, pursuing glory in the World Cup—let him, before he gets married. Otherwise, permission for a quick umbilical cord cutting ceremony might be the best he can hope for from The Boss. From there, it’s “Cat’s in the Cradle” all the way down, and another Gen Z will have to “rediscover” Catholicism.