Welcome to Daddy Issues, GQ’s series exploring modern fatherhood in its many forms.
In the summer of 2020, Matthew and his girlfriend, Michelle, were driving home to Denver after a weekend away in the Colorado mountains when the conversation turned to parenthood. All through his 20s, Matthew had seen children as an obligation, a check on one’s freedom and, honestly, kind of annoying. “The sound of babies crying – it just made me crazy,” he says now. “I was scared, and maybe immature. I wasn’t ready to be a father.” By the time Matthew found himself unexpectedly single at 33, after the end of an 11-year relationship, he had started feeling more open to the idea of having kids. Then he met Michelle.
Eighteen months into dating, Matthew found himself in the sort of loving, mutual relationship where a family starts to represent possibility, not constraint. But Michelle already had a child from her previous relationship and had always been clear: she didn’t want more.
At some point during that long drive, the abstract question abruptly became a live one. “Michelle said, ‘Look, if you want kids, you might need to find someone else,’” he says. “It was a very painful conversation.” They agreed that he would take some time to think.
Every day, for weeks afterwards, Matthew woke up feeling dread. “I wanted to be with Michelle, 100 per cent,” he says. “I just thought, Can I live with not having a kid?” He wanted to make a decision that felt true to him, and that he wouldn’t regret. But beneath his stomach-churning anxiety, his thoughts went in circles. Frustrated, he turned to Google, where he stumbled upon someone promising to deliver exactly what he desired most: clarity.
Ann Davidman is perhaps the world’s only dedicated fatherhood whisperer. A licensed therapist, for the past 30 years she has been running self-devised “parenthood clarity courses”, helping people through what will likely be the biggest decision they ever make: whether or not they want to have children. Many men who have taken her “fatherhood clarity course” speak of her as a sort of doula, skilfully guiding them past hurdles in their thinking around fatherhood that had felt insurmountable alone.
Some, like 33-year-old Ammar, had been turning over the question for years, through successive relationships, when they discovered Davidman. He took the course last year after a tip from a female friend. “I kept thinking about it, but it wasn’t moving the needle,” he says. “I needed a different methodology.”
Another, Andrew, signed up in 2018 seeking an objective way of parsing the question, separate from external pressures. He’d always been against having children, reflecting his ambivalence about his own upbringing; now 41, he is the father of a three-year-old boy. “I don’t think I would have ever been able to change my mind without Ann’s programme,” he says. “Having a guide was much appreciated – to not feel alone in the process.”
Speaking from her home office in Walnut Creek, California, Davidman exudes warmth, and a deep yet inscrutable wisdom that leads you to suspect she could tell you what you should do – and she’d probably be right. Instead Davidman guides you through your thoughts and feelings about becoming a parent, so that the rewards feel earned and your decision is yours alone. As she tells me: “It would be nice if it was a question for everyone, not an assumption.”
It was Davidman’s own hesitation over parenthood that birthed the course. Back in 1991 she was based in San Francisco, in her mid-30s and wanting children of her own. But having had no luck finding a suitable partner, she started training to become a therapist, to allow herself flexible enough hours to parent alone. “I didn’t think that I would ever meet a man that would work out,” she says.
Meanwhile, Davidman was sharing an office with her friend Denise Carlini, a fellow therapist in training, but one committed to living childfree. Carlini had two female patients who were feeling the pressure from their biological clocks to decide. “I remember it clearly: they were saying almost the same thing – about how they felt so alone, and how grateful they were for someone to talk to,” says Carlini.
It wasn’t common, then, to admit to ambivalence about motherhood, even among friends. Having children was treated as the next step after marriage – just something you did. That’s still the case even today, Davidman argues. “We live in a pronatalist society that sends the message that you should want children, and if you don’t, there’s something wrong with you.”
For Carlini and Davidman, having both thought deeply about their desired futures, the subject seemed rich for a professional collaboration. What if they brought Carlini’s patients together in a group with other prospective parents? It could be a therapeutic space, helping women to make up their minds free from external pressures while reframing children from an inevitable milestone to a path one actively chose to go down – or not. “Of course I wanted to help women know what they want, but I was also thinking about the next generation and wanting children to feel wanted,” says Davidman.
She and Carlini advertised their course with mail-out flyers and signs on bulletin boards. Eight people signed up. The first programme was a work in progress as Carlini and Davidman tried out how to do justice to the seriousness of the subject, without adding to the women’s sense of being overwhelmed. But the effect on those first individuals was immediate, Carlini says. “We could see how they were transformed.”
Breaking the taboo of discussing motherhood was energising to the young therapists. “It felt like we were doing something a little subversive.” But even as they were focused on growing their motherhood course, Davidman was conscious that they were only working with one half of the equation. “Ann was really good,” Carlini says. “Early on she said, ‘You know, this isn’t just about women.’”
Around 1997, they made a tentative move towards extending their resources to men. But even in progressive San Francisco, they were only able to find three for a group. “It was not enough – but they were so dear, and so desperate,” Carlini says. She’d felt nervous herself. “I didn’t really have any appreciation for how it was to be a man on that side of the question. I tried to lean into the trust that they’d help us.”
It’s not as if men don’t have a capacity for nurturing, but our culture has a way of driving out that instinct, or desire, says Carlini. “It’s not just women who suffer through patriarchy: we’ve done horrible things with the messaging to men. There’s a paralysis in many, around that soft side – they don’t recognise that it’s something valuable.”
Davidman did end up meeting a man – and getting married. But just as they were about to set out on the journey of parenthood, her husband was diagnosed with cancer. He died a few years later, and Davidman made a conscious decision to embrace a childfree life. “At some point I realised, I’m done pursuing this – this is not my path anymore,” she says.“I made a clear decision and never looked back.”
After all, as she says: “I’ve played a part in a lot of humans on this planet.”
After Carlini moved overseas in 2000, Davidman continued running the motherhood clarity course alone, extending it to men in 2005. Often, she sees both partners within a couple, split into different groups. All participants are advised to take a break from discussing parenthood within their relationship until the 12-week course is over. Davidman even provides them with a letter to give to their partner, making the case for an “uncensored private process”.
As much as parenthood might be treated as a relationship question, it’s still an individual decision, says Davidman. Some of her clients end up concluding they do want children, just not within their current relationship; or that they would prefer to live childfree but are prepared to start a family for the sake of their partner.
The aim of her programme is to reveal individuals’ latent beliefs and assumptions about parenthood. Through writing and visualisation exercises and prompts for group discussions that start in the shallows and go deeper each week, Davidman helps her clients to identify how they really feel. What they want, and what they decide to do, are not always aligned, she adds. One man she recalls wanted a large family; his partner didn’t ever want to be pregnant. They ended up adopting children, and fostering more. “They couldn’t be happier,” Davidman says.
Over 30 years, Davidman says, people’s fears about parenthood haven’t drastically changed. There’s those relating to age, career, finances, experiences in their past or fears about the future. Through the ’90s, it was common for Davidman’s clients to express concern about overpopulation; now it’s the climate crisis. But these issues are often a smokescreen distracting from the real factors at play, she says. Her course brings forward that subconscious material, so that it can be worked with.
The key difference, between 1991 and now, is that Davidman is being consulted by younger people, some not yet in their 30s and already feeling pressure to decide. “It’s very rare that someone will reach out to me from a relaxed place,” she says. This speaks to increasing recognition of the challenges of parenthood, reflected in falling birth rates and the increasing age of first-time parents. For many people, the question has been complicated by rising costs, the crisis in housing, the apocalyptic future projected for the planet, and that centuries-old message that having children is just what you do.
But even though there is now less of a taboo for people who feel ambivalence to having kids at a societal level, individuals still feel the weight of the decision. As Davidman says: “To this day, people will still say to me, ‘I thought I was the only one who didn’t know.’”
In 20 years of running her fatherhood clarity course, Davidman has seen the best rather than the worst of people. “I don’t know if I’ve ever had anyone where I’ve thought, Dear God, please don’t have children,” she says.
Today she runs three to four motherhood clarity courses every year, via Zoom. (Numbers are capped at 12, for the balance of sharing and support.) She still runs only one group for men, sometimes of just six individuals. But interest is growing as men become more comfortable with therapy, and as parenthood is increasingly treated as an equal undertaking.
“There’s a lot more stigma against this kind of self-work for men,” says Seamus, 38. He took the course last summer after his partner came across an online article that Davidman wrote advising prospective parents. “We both thought, Wow, it’s like she’s in my head.”
Seamus had been struck by how some of his friends had seemed to drift into parenthood, “like it’s just the next natural phase”. Davidman’s course appealed for its emphasis on authentic decision-making. “It’s not self-indulgence – it’s being honest with yourself,” Seamus says. “Doing that same pros and cons list for the 100th time is not going to help.”
He benefitted from being among other men, each grappling with the same question. By their own admission, the men who seek Davidman out are a rarified group, distinguished by their readiness to spend 12 weeks – and around £1,300 – on self-improvement. All but one of the four I spoke to were also in private psychotherapy, or had past experience of it. But all agree: the course was money well spent, if only for the absence of alternative support.
“There was a strain I felt trying to get men to talk about this with me,” says Ammar. Most of his friends either wanted kids or had them. “Some feelings I’m a lot more able to access and chat about, but this one felt tricky.” Meanwhile, expert advice online tends to focus on motherhood. “You can end up reading a bunch of stuff that’s directed towards women,” says Ammar. “But feeling seen and validated in your specific experience felt pretty essential.”
Struggling after the birth of his first child, Ben tried everything – including working out five times a day – except talking about it
For Seamus, even admitting to his uncertainty about fatherhood seemed to fly in the face of what was expected of him as a man. “There is still an inherent sense that it is your job to be the head of the household, the rock, the decision maker.” They may be tired tropes, he says, “but that doesn’t mean they don’t still exist”.
On top of that traditional role, men are also now expected to be more hands-on parents. “As a father, you take on a much larger portion of that responsibility than was historically the case,” says Seamus. That’s no bad thing, he adds, “but it does make it that much more of an intimidating prospect”. His own father was largely absent during his childhood, busy building a business. “I barely saw him between the ages of zero and 10 – that’s just what I thought was normal.” Within Davidman’s group, Seamus says, that was a common thread. “We were all waking up, probably a bit later than we should have, [to the fact] that our future as fathers would be different.”
Likewise, many people’s fears of parenthood are rooted in their experience of childhood. Andrew’s sessions with Davidman shone light on his early suffering and triggers that had persisted through two divorces and countless hours in psychotherapy. With Davidman, he came to understand how his parents could have done better by him and how he could avoid repeating their mistakes. “I was just being fearful, or living in the past.”
Many men, when faced with the prospect of children, will defer to their partner, claiming to be content to go along with whatever she wants. But not only does this put the burden on women, it also denies men the chance to step into fatherhood with agency and self-awareness.
For all the progress seen over Davidman’s career, the burden to provide for their family continues to weigh heavier on men than it does on women, she says. Many feel a conflict between the messages they’ve received about fatherhood and masculinity and today’s reality. Those specific challenges are why Davidman continues to separate prospective mothers and fathers (though she and Carlini have plans to update their 2016 book Motherhood: Is It for Me? to be inclusive of men and non-binary individuals). “You could have a room of 50 women and one man, and it changes,” she says. “Sexism is still alive and well – we’re just not evolved enough.”
For now, 68-year-old Davidman takes profound pleasure in creating a forum where men are free to be vulnerable, and their stake in parenthood is acknowledged. “I love working with men – especially men who are conscientious and want to do the right thing, for their partner and themselves,” she says. “It never gets old. I say the same things over and over again, but it lands differently for each person. When I can see someone get clear on something or feel freed up inside, that’s just thrilling.”
Many of her clients still vividly recall a visualisation exercise, at the course’s peak, where Davidman tasks them with spending one week living as though they have decided to start a family, and the next week against it. It sounds straightforward, but after the preceding weeks of introspection, the men describe breakthroughs in their thinking. By the end of his week of living “no”, Ammar felt an acute sense of loss: “I didn’t expect it, and that’s what made it so weighty to me.”
Andrew was likewise surprised by the emptiness evoked in him by the thought of living childfree – like he’d missed a chance to draw a line under his difficult childhood. “I found it very touching, being able to feel the decision,” he says. “Through the course with Ann, I was genuinely able to come to a ‘yes’ – not just saying it to stay with my girlfriend.”
Perhaps surprisingly, given how the course is marketed, not everyone concludes it having decided to either start a family or live childfree. But clarity can take many forms. Before the course, Seamus says, he’d been stuck at step one of a many-stage process; over those 12 weeks, he identified “certain questions” he needed answered about his relationship before he could make up his mind. “Otherwise I was trying to build a house on sand.”
Ammar concluded by deciding that he did want children – just not yet. And it needed to be with the right partner. “I want to feel like we have a strong relationship before moving forward,” he says. He feels that knowledge, plus Davidman’s framework for decision-making, puts him in a better position as he returns to dating, especially given his last relationship ended over this very question.
For Matthew, tormented by that drive home with Michelle, the course couldn’t begin soon enough. Joining the conference call with nine other men, he was struck immediately by the depth of Davidman’s expertise and kindness. “I remember thinking, She must have heard this before. But it really felt like she was hearing you, not just assuming she knew where you were coming from,” he says.
After weeks debating between parenthood and his partner, the course revealed new paths for Matthew’s thinking. He found that his ambivalence was wrapped up in ideas of responsibility, like he’d be revealing himself as immature or frivolous if he didn’t have children. But Davidman made the liberating point: just because you can doesn’t mean you have to. “It doesn’t take long for people to really be blown away by self-discovery,” she says. “The issue isn’t so much about whether to be a father or not. It’s really about: ‘Who am I?’”
For Matthew, who began the course knowing it could mean breaking up with a partner he loved, he concluded it with a painful but mature realisation: though he was more sure than ever that he wanted children, “if the choice was between having kids and having a great relationship, I’d choose the relationship”.
Revealing his decision to Michelle was emotional for them both. “I can’t believe I get to keep you,” she told him.
As sometimes happens, though, life ended up taking an unexpected turn. A year after Matthew had concluded the course, Michelle came to him with a realisation of her own: she wanted another child. “She said, ‘I don’t want to have kids in general – but I want to have a kid with you,’” he says, still sounding awestruck. “I couldn’t believe it. I was just thinking, You mean we might be able to have it all?”
When we speak, Matthew and Michelle are engaged – and 11 weeks out from becoming parents to a boy. “I’m scared, but mostly thrilled,” he says. His journey to fatherhood might have been hard and winding, but having the space and support to know his own mind was crucial. “Part of Michelle changing her mind was knowing that I did want this, that I’d thought about it very carefully. I’ll be an older dad than a lot of my peers – but I’m glad, because I’ll be a better dad.
“Now, I feel very ready.”
Some names have been changed.