Mary Pouline,
Author and Founder, Sapience Publications
Hello, dear readers.
I am Mary Pouline, back again with my monthly parenting insights. Previously, I have shared my thoughts about motherhood and the changing landscape of a woman’s mind as she nurtures a child. I think it’s about time I gave fathers some attention as well. After all, parenting is a team game. In this article, I wish to focus on a silent, yet profound shift in Indian fathers.
Change in India is rarely loud. It does not announce itself with dramatic ruptures or clean endings. It happens quietly: inside living rooms, during late-night diaper changes, and in school WhatsApp groups fathers were never part of before. Over the last decade, Indian fatherhood has begun to shift, not in sweeping declarations, but in subtle, persistent ways. The transformation is incomplete, uneven, and often misunderstood, but it is undeniably underway.
For generations, Indian fathers were cast in a narrow role: provider, disciplinarian, authority figure. Emotional involvement was optional, caregiving was peripheral, and daily parenting was largely delegated to mothers, grandmothers, or hired help. Love was expressed through responsibility, not presence. Many men grew up believing that distance was dignity and restraint was strength.
Today, that script is slowly being rewritten.
From Breadwinner to
Caregiver — A Role Expansion
Urban Indian households are witnessing fathers who attend pediatric appointments, prepare school lunches, and know their child’s favourite bedtime story. According to a 2022 report by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Indian men now spend nearly three times more time on unpaid caregiving work than they did two decades ago, though women still shoulder the majority. While the gap remains wide, the direction of change matters.
This shift has not occurred in a vacuum. Rising nuclear families, increased female workforce participation, delayed parenthood, and exposure to global parenting narratives have all played a role. Many younger fathers today are more educated, more emotionally aware, and more willing to question inherited norms than previous generations.
As sociologist Ashis Nandy once observed, “The family is often where social change arrives last—but once it does, it reshapes everything.” Indian fatherhood seems to be following that pattern.
Emotional Presence:
The Quiet Revolution
Perhaps the most significant change is not logistical but emotional. Fathers are increasingly expected, not just encouraged, to be emotionally available. This includes listening, comforting, apologising, and expressing affection, all of which were once considered incompatible with masculinity.
Psychologists note that children who experience emotionally responsive fathering demonstrate better emotional regulation, higher self-esteem, and stronger interpersonal skills. A 2020 UNICEF India brief highlighted that active father involvement is associated with improved cognitive and emotional outcomes in children, regardless of socioeconomic status.
Yet emotional availability does not come naturally to everyone. Many Indian men were raised in environments where feelings were dismissed or disciplined out of them. Expecting instant emotional fluency from such fathers is like expecting someone who learned to swim late in life to suddenly compete in open waters. The effort itself deserves recognition.
Why Progress Feels Slow —and Why That’s Okay
Despite visible change, criticism often follows. Social media discourse frequently labels involved fathers as doing the “bare minimum.” While the sentiment stems from long-standing gender imbalance, it risks flattening a complex transition into moral judgment.
It is crucial that we acknowledge every small step and offer encouragement, in order to drive bigger changes. This is a slow transformation. We cannot approach it grudgingly and expect fathers to rise to the level of mothers overnight, while battling many social constraints and conservative thoughts to do so.
Change that is resented rarely sustains itself. Change that is encouraged has a chance to deepen.
The Social Constraints
Fathers Navigate
Indian fathers attempting to parent differently often face resistance, not only from older family members, but from peers and workplaces. A man leaving work early to attend a school event is still subtly judged. A father taking paternity leave may be seen as less committed. A man openly discussing mental load or emotional labour risks being labelled “too soft.”
Workplace policies reflect this bias. While maternity leave in India stands at 26 weeks, statutory paternity leave is still limited and inconsistently implemented, especially in the private sector. Structural signals matter. When systems do not support involved fatherhood, individual effort becomes harder to sustain.
As writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie aptly said, “We should all be feminists—and that includes redefining masculinity.” In India, that redefinition is ongoing, but far from complete.
