We are hybrid dads, and we GOT THIS

If you’re a dad like me, juggling work, home life, and your role as a partner, let me tell you—you’re not alone. We’re the first generation of dads stepping into this new space, trying to figure out what it means to be fully present as fathers and equal partners in our relationships. It’s not easy, but it’s ours to own.

We’re hybrid dads. We’re building something new, something better—and it’s time we talked about how to get there together.

A hybrid dad isn’t defined by tradition or rebellion—it’s about creating a role that works for your family. It’s part breadwinner, part partner, part parent—and 100% intentional.

Why Men Should Read Fair Play

If you’re a millennial husband or father, I think you should read Fair Play by Eve Rodsky. Or, if you know a millennial husband or father—especially one who’s quietly trying to balance home life, work life, and being a good, equitable partner—gift them this book. Even if it doesn’t seem like it’s “for them,” it just might be what they need.

It was a game changer for me personally, and also for our marriage.

The book offers both a mental model for what a fair balance of domestic responsibility can look like in a partnership and a practical system to manage those responsibilities with clarity and efficiency. It’s dramatically reduced the friction Robyn and I used to experience while running our household and managing our family system.

For example, cooking and meal planning used to be a source of endless improvisation and frustration. We’d either figure everything out together or constantly reset our schedules on the fly. It wasn’t working. Now, we’ve set roles: I’m the weekend chef, and Robyn’s the weekday chef. I used to handle groceries, but it made more sense for her to take over, and we adjusted intentionally. Knowing exactly what ingredients she needs and when has made the process seamless, thanks to concepts we learned in Fair Play like the “minimum standard of care.” These ideas helped us have conversations about fairness and efficiency without resentment.

This shift gave us more than just better logistics—it gave us peace.

And that’s what we need in this reset—peace of mind, clarity, and confidence. Because this isn’t just about household chores; it’s about redefining what it means to show up as dads and partners in a way that works for us.

A Reset for Men

There’s been a lot of talk about how men are struggling. The data is there, and the anecdotes are everywhere. To me, all of this is true—but I see it more as a practical and personal phenomenon than an abstract crisis.

As a man, I think of it as a reset.

Here’s why I hate the “crisis” framing: It feels emasculating. When people talk about us as a lost generation of men, it’s hard to engage with that narrative—it feels like a judgment, like we’re failing somehow just by existing in this moment of change.

That’s not helpful, and frankly, it’s a turn-off. It makes me want to disengage.

I don’t see us as victims, and I’m not interested in crisis rhetoric. What I see is an opportunity to reset and redefine what it means to be a husband and father.

A generation ago, gender roles were simpler—though not necessarily better. The man worked outside the home, often as the breadwinner, and there were plenty of examples (good and bad) of what that looked like. Today, it’s different. Many men aren’t the sole earners anymore, and many of us are leaning into home life and parenting in ways our fathers didn’t.

The problem? Most of us don’t have a blueprint.

Few of us had dads who split domestic responsibilities equitably. Fewer still had dads who volunteered at the PTA or took paternity leave. We’re making this up as we go because we’re the first generation actively navigating pluralistic gender roles.

And that’s the beauty of it: There’s no one way to be a good husband or father anymore. Traditional roles can work, but so can new hybrids. What matters is that we’re intentional about creating a family system that works for us.

We are hybrid dads—we’ve got each other’s backs, and we GOT THIS.

How Fair Play Helps

Fair Play gave Robyn and me a language to talk about our family system and decide how we wanted it to work. By breaking responsibilities into categories—from chores to self-care to parenting—we could set standards for our household and adjust as life changed.

For us, this meant defining who “owned” which tasks. For example, when my work schedule changed, we switched roles for groceries.

In addition to the book, we also bought Rodsky’s flashcards and found it helpful to “redeal” physical cards every few months.

I also created a PDF template to keep track of all this and reset my focus weekly on my Remarkable.

You can download my PDF template here.

The results? Less tension at home. Less self-doubt about whether I’m doing the right thing as a husband or father. And something even more meaningful: more joy.

By being more involved at home, I’ve gained something many men in previous generations didn’t have—deep, priceless time with my kids and my wife. The joy that comes from being fully present, from knowing I’m not just managing but thriving as a dad and partner, is worth every effort.

Why Men Should Read This Book

If you’re a man in this “reset” generation, Fair Play is a godsend. It’s not just about managing tasks; it’s about finding confidence in the type of husband and father you want to be.

We may not have role models for this new way of being a man, but we don’t need to feel lost. Fair Play gives us a framework to build our own hybrid roles—ones that work for our families, bring us closer to our partners, and let us embrace the joy of being present.

I recommend this book to any man navigating this shift. Read it. Try the system and the cards. Download the template. See how it changes your home life.

It sure as hell changed mine.

We do not have monsters inside us

The first time I had the delusion, was probably around the time I started high school. I don’t remember what preceded it, I just remember thinking, “there’s something untamed and dark inside me.”

As I’ve aged, I’ve come to realized that I’m not the only man who has felt the grip of something inside them, small to be sure, but something that feels like evil.

For decades now, I’ve believed this about myself as a man: I have this tiny little seed, deep down, in my heart. That seed is a little root of evil and I must not let it grow. I know there is a monster within, and I must not let it out.

I don’t know from whence this deluision came. But it came.

The delusion reawakened when I started to seeing press about a new book, Of Boys and Men by Richard Reeves, which is about the crisis among men we have in America. I haven’t read the book, yet, but here’s some context from Derek Thompson at The Ringer:

American men have a problem. They account for less than 40 percent of new college graduates but roughly 70 percent of drug overdose deaths and more than 80 percent of gun violence deaths. As the left has struggled to offer a positive vision of masculinity, male voters have abandoned the Democratic Party at historically high rates.

Or this from New York Times columnist David Brooks:

More men are leading haphazard and lonely lives. Roughly 15 percent of men say they have no close friends, up from 3 percent in 1990. One in five fathers doesn’t live with his children. In 2014, more young men were living with their parents than with a wife or partner. Apparently even many who are married are not ideal mates. Wives are twice as likely to initiate divorces as husbands.

I come away with the impression that many men are like what Dean Acheson said about Britain after World War II. They have lost an empire but not yet found a role. Many men have an obsolete ideal: Being a man means being the main breadwinner for your family. Then they can’t meet that ideal. Demoralization follows.

For more than a year, before this book was released, I’ve been grappling with some of its core themes. I might not call my own life a crisis, per se, but I struggle with being a man in America today.

I have been wanting to write about “masculinity” or “the American man” for some time, but have struggled to find the right frame and honestly the guts to do it.

A different version of this post could’ve been about how lonely, and isolated I feel and how hard it has been to maintain the ties I have with close, male, friends from high school, college, and my twenties. Or I could’ve written about the pressure of competition in the workplace and the way other protected groups are supported, but I and other males are not, though we also struggle.

I might’ve written about the confusion I feel - I am trying to operate in a fair and equal marriage with Robyn, but we have no blueprints to draw from because society today and what it means to be a man feels so different from the time I came of age. A different version of this post might’ve be political and angry, pushing back against the stigma I feel when I’m gathering with other men - for example, sometimes I feel like getting together in groups of men is something to be ashamed of because it’s assumed that groups of men will devolve into something chauvinistic or destructive and “boys will be boys” and masculinity is “toxic.”

[Let me be clear though: abusive, violent, exploitative, or criminal behavior is absolutely wrong. And the many stories that have been made public about men who behave this way is wrong. And I’d add, men shouldn’t let other men behave that way, toward anyone. I do not imply with any of the struggles I’ve referenced above that any person, man or women, is exempted from the standards of right conduct because they are struggling.]

What I do imply, is that the struggles that are talked about in public discourse about the crisis of men is real to me, personally. My life does not mirror every statistic or datapoint that’s published about it, but directionally I feel that same struggle of masculinity.

As I’ve searched for words to say something honest and relevant about masculinity, what I’ve kept coming back to is that delusion I’ve believed that there is an evil and dark part of me, even if it’s small and buried deep down, that exists because I am a man. The negative ground that all my struggles of masculity come from is the belief that there’s a monster inside me, and that the balance of my life hangs on not letting him out of the cage.

For me at least, this is the battleground where the struggle of my masculinity starts and ends. No policy change is going to solve this for me. No life hack is going to solve this for me. No adulation or expression of anger is going to solve this for me.

If I want to get over my struggle with my masculinity and difficulties I feel about being a man in America today, I have to dispel the belief that there’s a monster inside me. I have to prove that I am not evil inside and that belief is indeed a delusion. The obstacle is the way.

But how? How do I prove to myself that there’s not a monster, that I was born, inside me?

—

Our neighborhood is full of old houses, built mostly in the 1920s. And fundamentally, there are two ways to renovate an old house. You either paper over the problems, or you fix them and take the house all the way down to the foundation and the studs if you have to.

As it turns out, the only way you really make an old house sturdy is to take it down to the studs, and build from there. Papering over the issues in an old house - whether it’s old pipes, wiring, or mold - leads to huge, costly, problems later. The only way is to build a house is from good bones.

With that model in my head, I thought of this reflection, to hopefully prove to myself - once and for all - that I do not have the seeds of evil and darkness, sown into me because I was born a man.

The rest of this post is my self-reflection around three questions. I share it because I feel like I need to try out my own dog food and demonstrate that it can be helpful. But more than that, if you’re a man or someone who cares about a man, I share all this in hopes that if you also believe the delusion that you were born with a monster inside, that you change your mind.

For sure, every person is capable of terrible things. But we, as men, don’t have to believe the delusion that we were born with a monster inside us. We have to stop believing that. We can build our identity as men around the parts of us that are most good.

—

What are the broken, superficial parts of me that I can strip away to get down to the core of the man I am?

I can strip away the resentment I have about being raised with so much pressure to achieve. I can strip away the bizarre relationship I have with human sexuality because as an adolescent the culture around me only modeled two ways of being: reckless promiscuity or abstinence, even from touching. I can strip away the anger I have because as a south Asian man, I am expected to be a doctor, IT professional, and someone who never has opinions, something to say, or the capability to lead from the front. I can strip away the self-loathing I have about being a man - I can be supportive of womens’ rights and opportunities without hating myself. I can strip back all the times I tried to prove myself as a dominant male: choosing to play football in high school, doing bicep curls for vanity’s sake, binge drinking to fit in or avoid hard conversations, trying to get phone numbers at the bar, or talking about my accomplishments as a way of flexing - I do not need to be the stereotypical “alpha male” to be a man. I can strip away my need for perfection and control, without being soft or having low standards.

I can strip away all pressures to prove my strength based on how I express feelings: I do not have to exude strength by being emotional closed, nor do I need to exude strength by going out of my way to express emotion and posture as a modern, emotionally in-touch man - I can be myself and express feelings in a way that’s honest and feels like me. I can strip away the thirst I have for status, my job title and resume is what I do for a living, not my life. I can strip away the self-editing I do about my hobbies and preferences - I can like whatever I like, sports, cooking, writing, gardening, astronomy, the color yellow, the color blue, the color pink - all this stuff is just stuff not “guy stuff” or “girl stuff.” I can strip away the pressure I feel to be a breadwinner, Robyn and I share the responsibility of putting food on the table and keeping the lights on, we make decisions together and can chart our own path.

Once I strip away all the superficial parts of me, and get down to the studs, what’s left? What’s the strong foundation to build my identity, specifically as a man, from?

At my core, I am honest and I do right by people. At my core I am constructively impatient, I am not obsessed over results, but I care about making a better community for myself and others. At my core, I am curious and weird - that’s not good or bad, it’s just evidence that I have a thirst to explore no ideas and things to learn. At my core, I value families - both my own and the idea that families are part of the human experience. At my core, I care about talent - no matter what I achieve extrinsically I am determined to use my gifts and for others to use there, because if the human experience can have less suffering, why the hell wouldn’t we try? At my core, I believe in building power and giving it away and I am capable of walking away from power. At my core, I care most about being a better husband, father, and citizen.

Now that I’ve stripped down to the studs, what mantra am I going to say to replace my old negative thought of, “I was born with a monster inside me that I can’t let out of the cage?”

I was born into a difficult world, but with a good heart. I am capable of choosing the man I will become.

Photo Credit: Unsplash @bdilla810

We All React To Feeling Invisible

Most of the time I feel invisible.

This is mostly because of my three most salient social identities: Indian-American, Man, and Father.

Being Indian in America is like being in purgatory. On the one hand, most people assume I am a physician or in IT and I rarely feel racially profiled by the police, the courts, or other tentacles of the state. Most of the time, in most places, I don’t feel predisposed to racial slurs or ethnic violence. It’s not, hard, per se.

On the other hand, I’ve been told so many times “thanks for herding the cats” instead of “thank you for your leadership.” So many times, people have assumed my parents are stupid because of their accent or seem surprised that I like country music and hip-hop or that I married a white woman.

So many times, people at work have made me work harder and prove more than any of my counterparts for the same opportunities. And, there is no recognized constituency, politically speaking, for Indian-Americans because we’re a small percentage of the population and we’re disproportionally wealthy - I don’t get the sense that anybody feels like we need support. Being Indian is not, easy, per se, either.

I also feel like an outcast among men, because I never feel like I relate to “men.” My interests are different and would probably be considered feminine if anyone was keeping track. I’ve never been able to build muscle mass lifting weights and I don’t like violence, aggression, sarcasm, or sexual humor. I don’t want to play fantasy football or golf, nor do I want to.

I am also a father. And these days its en vouge to make hapless fathers into the butt of jokes. And, in the workplace fathers get no sympathy and have no champions because a lot of time, it seems, than men aren’t allowed to be championed - even dads trying to figure it out.

Yes, I feel invisible. But the truth is, I honestly believe that everyone feels invisible or treated unfairly - even white men - at least sometimes. And I think that’s true - I don’t think anyone is ever treated as fairly as they should be - even white men. We live in a country with low levels of trust so I think we should expect that everyone feels some degree of invisibility, too.

So in truth, we all have a choice to make - how will we react to our perceived invisibility?

There are four options.

I have thought about assimilating. For me, that usually means acting more like a white male, but for others assimilation might mean something different obviously. It’s just easier to be like everyone else. With assimilation it’s a tradeoff between invisibility and authenticity.

I have thought about just letting myself fade away and become more invisible. Not having a public life. Avoiding conflict. Just going through the motions, keeping to myself, and just riding out my days with close friends and family. Even if I’m invisible to the rest of the world, maybe there are a few dozen people who will see me for who I am. But, then, I will have lived an apathetic life. By letting myself become invisible, I would have to resign myself to not making the world a better place - because who can improve the culture we swim in if they don’t engage with it? With fading away, it’s a tradeoff between invisibility and contribution.

I have thought about aligning with a tribe. Maybe I lean more into attending the University of Michigan, a famous college. Maybe I do more “Indian Stuff” or join more “Indian people groups.” Or maybe, I just get more into professional sports and wear logo’d baseball caps more often.

But “aligning with a tribe” is basically a socially acceptable way of saying, “I’m going to join a gang.” The group identify of a “tribe” offers protection, just like a gang - it’s just social protection rather than physical. And the problem with being part of a gang iis that you usually have to be an enemy of a rival gang and prove loyalty to the group…somehow. With tribes, it’s a trade offs between invisibility and conflict.

Again, at some level, I think this is a choice we all face. How will we react to our perceived invisibility? Will we assimilate, fade away, or align with a tribe?

I can’t bring myself to do any of these things. I just can’t.

I’ve assimilated enough, already. I want to contribute rather than fade into the background. I don’t want to become less invisible at the cost of being an enemy of someone else. And so the implied fourth choice is “none of the above.” It is a long hard walk - that leaves me feeling, angry, overwhelmed, and lonely.

How will we react to our perceived invisibility? It’s choices like these that reveal true character and demonstrate its importance. There are few choices, too, I think, that are more difficult and more consequential.

We are reimagining what it means to be a man

In the age we live in, what it means to be a man is being completely reimagined. And as a result, what we are trying to do as men - particularly as husbands, fathers, and citizens - is nothing short of remarkable. We are actively reinventing, for the first time, the role of men in society.

I struggle a lot with this.

On the one hand, I am a man. Being a man is a salient part of who I am and how I view the world. This may indicate, to some at least, that I’m less evolved and not as “woke”, if that’s the right word, than others among us. I’m not able to hold a world view that gender is entirely a social construction or that we should create a world that ignores the very concept of “men”. I’m not entirely sure what being a feminist or male ally entails, but I’m pretty sure I’m not that, exactly, either.

At the same time, I reject what being a man means today. And I’m not comfortable with the grotesque baggage that being a man is inseparable from. The criticisms of men and masculinity are legitimate, and that’s an understatement.

Men have controlled and abused women, for most of known history it seems - whether it was politically or through sexual violence. Marriages between men and women, generally speaking, have not be fair or equitable, ever. The glass ceiling is real - I see my women and my female colleague hindered and treated outright badly, in ways that men aren’t. I don’t want to be that kind of man.

But it seems to me, that for the first time, at least some men are trying to take on this tension - identifying with being a man, but rejecting its harmful externalities - and act differently. I don’t know if it’s a majority of men or even that a lot that are trying to reimagine what it means to be a man, but I’m certainly struggling through this tension. So are a lot of my friends and colleagues and it’s something we talk about. So it can’t be an immaterial amount of men who are trying to figure this out, right?

I love the mental model of using an OKR (Objective and Key Results) to set clear goals (you can get a nice crash course on OKRs, here). And so I tried applying it to “being a good man” - this is what being a “good man” means to me:

When I was done, I had a “whoa” moment. The OKR I created, I realized, is quite different than what I would assume the stereotypical man of the 20th century would create if he were doing the same exercise. Hell, it’s quite different than what my own father would probably create. Like, can you imagine the men of 1950s sitcoms (or even 1990s sitcoms) talking about fair distribution of domestic responsibilities or parenting without fear tactics?

I can’t. Most of the protagonists in those shows had wives who didn’t work outside the homes - the contexts in which those characters were cast is wildly different than our own.

And that’s what makes what we’re doing remarkable. We’re trying to envision a different future - and live it ourselves - without having any sort of role model on what this reconception of what it means to be a man can look like. It’s even more remarkable and complex because it’s not just heterosexual men in same-race relationships that are figuring this out. Gay men and men in interracial or interfaith relationships are also figuring out how to be husbands, fathers, and citizens in this time of cultural flux around what it means to be a man.

I couldn’t talk to my own father about this anyway (God rest his soul), but even if he was around he couldn’t be my role model for this journey. Despite my father being the most honest and perhaps the kindest man I’ve ever met, he was still swimming in a culture with remarkably rigid gender roles. All our male role models were, because that was the culture of the times.

But beyond our own uncles, fathers, and grandparents, we don’t have stories in our culture to draw from for role models, either. There aren’t novels with strong, male protagonists that are trying to redefine manhood in the 21st century, that I’ve found at least. On the contrary, every novel I’ve heard my friends talk about with male protagonists were from detective novels, historical fiction, thrillers, or from science fiction - hardly relatable to men trying to recast their male identities.

There are great male role models from the canon of 20th century literature and culture - Atticus Finch of To Kill a Mockingbird, Aragorn from Lord of the Rings, Reverend John Ames from Gilead, or even Master Yoda from Star Wars are favorites of mine - but those characters are in the wrong context to really help us navigate the process of reimagine manhood as well. Atticus and Yoda are not really dealing with contemporary circumstances, obviously, as much as I really am inspired by their example.

Honestly, it seems like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and its superheroes going through real struggles and making real sacrifices are the closest role models we can look to as men trying to be better men. Maybe that’s why I like those films so much. But it’s hard and probably ego-inflating for me to relate to comic book superheroes. We need, and have to have something better than Marvel movies, right?

My wife loves the titles from Reese Witherspoon’s book club, and I honestly love hearing the stories of the novels she’s reading. All the titles are written by women and have strong female protagonists. I would love to have a similar book club, but with strong male protagonists trying to reimagine what it means to be a man. But what novels do we even have to choose from?

So fellas, what we are trying to do is remarkable. We’re not trying to navigate to a new place, as much as we’re trying to make a map to a place that’s never been visited.

We need to talk about it, blog about it, and podcast about it. Some of us have to write novels about it, or make music and movies about it. We have to leave a body of work for the next generation of men to draw upon. We have to leave our sons, nephews, students, players, and grandsons a place to start as they continue this remarkable journey of reimagining manhood that we’ve started.

When men dream bigger

As a man in America, I feel like I operate in a bit of a no-man’s land between the cultures of men and women.

On the one hand, there’s the culture of men. It’s the culture of ambition, being the king of the hill, and dominating others. It’s the culture predicated on the notion of “might makes right.” Some people call it patriarchy, some call it locker room culture, some call it toxic masculinity. 

I don’t really care to call it anything, I just know that I am alienated by it. I’m not particularly “macho”. I tried to fake it for awhile when I was younger, but as time passed I’ve realized that I don’t want to partake in that particular culture that groups of men tend to devolve into. Even though I often feel like I have to fit that mold of a man to be respected and rewarded for my efforts, especially in professional settings, I don’t want to be like “one of the guys.”

At the same time, the community of women is not a haven for me either - I don’t fit in there, even though it’s fairly inclusive and I’d like to. 

But even though I feel solidarity with thinkers and organizations like Brene Brown, Melinda Gates, the US Women’s National Team, Mary Barra, Michele Obama, and Reese Witherspoon’s Book club - and if I’m being honest, look to them as role models - I just never feel quite like I can belong there, even if the issue is my own mindset. For example, if I participate in something that’s by-women, for women (like a Women’s Leadership Development group event at work) I personally feel like I must participate as an advocate / ally, rather than as a beneficiary - even though I feel alienated by the patriarchy and limited by the glass ceiling, too. Even if it’s in my own head, I just can’t be part of that tribe.

Between those two spaces is where I feel like I operate - I don’t want to be part of the dominant men’s culture, but don’t feel like I belong in cultures by women, and for women, either. That place of invisibility is my no-man’s land. I don’t have any empirical evidence of this yet, but my intuition is that a growing number of us men feel like we are in this invisible, voiceless, no-man’s land too. That bothers me.

—

I can think of two ways to make this no-man’s land into a place that feels more like home.

The first path I can think of is diversity. I’ve noticed that when I’m among a diverse group of men (in any and every sense of the word) the dominant male culture feels tempered. It’s like the pressure to compete is off if the dudes around you aren’t even trying to fill the same niche you are. 

I think my closest high-school guy-friends are a good example of this dynamic. We run the gamut of professions, life experiences, politics, religiosity and interests. Between us we have: a corporate drone (me), a bar manager, a federal public servant, a software developer, a quant, a show-businesses tech, and a priest. We cover three different races, most of the political spectrum, and live in four different states now. 

When we’re together, I feel almost none of that dominant male culture. We have no reason do anything but celebrate and support each other because we’re not trying to be the king of the same hill.

The other path out of this no-man’s land (that I can think of, at least) is dreaming bigger. 

I was lucky to get to know one of the OGs of Detroit - I’ll call him Mr. B here, when I was working for the Detroit Police Department. He was one of our close community partners, and he would often speak at community events associated with the gang violence prevention program I worked on. He had endless energy, motivation, and wisdom. One of his ideas that I’ll never forget is that, “it’s a dangerous thing when a man stops dreaming.” I’ve reflected on this idea for years now.

If we, as men, dreamed bigger and more generously I feel like we might be able to create a different culture for ourselves. Because when you are dreaming of bigger things that raise up ourselves, our communities, and our world - we realize that the same-old hill we’ve been trying to become a king of, is small-minded. When we set our sights on a compelling vision that’s generous, virtuous, and benefits others we have a reason to stop thinking about one-upping other people and trying to get to the top of that same imaginary, one-dimensional hill. The dream expands our horizons and gives us the chance to transcend our our personal egos. 

When we, as men, dream bigger, we have better things to do than be assholes that behave aggressively and try to dominate others - because any time that’s not spent on reaching that big, difficult dream is wasted. It’s just a whole different dynamic when we’re dreaming big (assuming that dream is not selfish or ego-driven) because instead of fighting over the same hill, we realize that the world is a big place, there are hills for all of us, and that we can help each other on the climb.

For me at least, the challenge of a big dream gives me a reason to break the boundaries and chains of the culture I’m in and an implied permission to create a new culture. Which is why I think (and hope) it’s a path out of this no-man’s land.

I feel this tension and alienation from the dominant male culture damn near every day of my life. It’s grueling and exhausting. Some days I want to just give up and let myself fade into that dominant male culture. But I just can’t. We just can’t. We will get out of this no-man’s land if we stick with it.