Last week we left off our Dude Zone to Dad Zone journey with a discussion on how the ultimate goal of Dad Zone Thriving is the ongoing balancing act between the “real you” of Sacred Individuality and the “role you” of Family Responsibilities. While this may seem easy at first, your Family Responsibilities list gets a lot fuller, more active, and more demanding as you get closer to Baby’s arrival. And once Baby gets here, it’s pretty much going to feel all-encompassing!

And remember, your relationship with Mama will be changing quicker than ever here towards the tail end of the pregnancy too. Sure, some of your favorite “Us Time” activities may have disappeared entirely once you realized you were on the pregnancy journey, like going out for drinks or staying up late watching your favorite shows together. But now more and more of them might be shrinking down too as the pregnancy progresses and her energy and physical abilities shift.

These changes can be challenging enough to adapt to on their own, to be sure. But now all the new TME demands of Baby prep stuff are increasing in relevance, and you are expected to show interest and excitement when pairing up with Mama. These increasing Family Responsibilities make up the core of the Dad Zone, and managing them well is your key to thriving there.

For most guys, especially those who don’t have the handy tools I’ve been discussing in this series and my WTF book, this constant need to adjust and rebalance their lives between their Sacred Individuality (the real you) and their ever growing list of Family Responsibilities (the role you) is a never-ending game of guessing on how to help Mama, helping plan for Baby, and generally showing up as the “helpful and supportive” partner she needs you to be.

In essence this looks a lot like showing up for a new job, getting no real training, and then getting judged, shamed, cajoled, and/or expected to “do it better” by both the culture and Mama alike. Sounds fun, right? And frankly speaking, all these new Baby-related demands, and Mama’s struggles in managing them too, become ever-stronger forces that push most guys over the edge a few times a week into what I call the Dud Zones.

And to be clear, your Dud Zone foibles aren’t Mama’s fault at all, even it totally feels that way at times. Pregnant Mamas are terribly supported by the bigger culture here in the US as well. Even in the most idealist cultural scenarios, pregnancy is simply straight up hard to go through. It’s not Mama’s fault that they aren’t getting the help they need from the non-existent support systems that previously characterized much of our collective history.

They are then often left looking primarily to you to provide them help in a meaningful way, but they can’t put exactly what that looks like into words easily. They just know they are struggling and need some help. Most of us guys aren’t built for easy and intuitive pregnancy support, so this constant “missing” of each other is what creates the 2 primary Dud Zones that plague the journey to the Dad Zone.

What are these 2 Dud Zones? The Dud Zones are how I talk about the 2 most common ways that guys “miss” when trying to make their way up out of the Dude Zone and into the Dad Zone. And trust me, you should expect to miss early and often and will probably spend some time in each of the Dud Zones quite frequently. Again, this journey is inherently challenging due to the massive rebalancing required from your previous life of Dude Zone Thriving where you had plenty of TME to devote to all the things that float your boat. So spending time in both of these Dud Zones is to be expected. But the goal is to quickly get out of them and back towards the Dad Zone, not just throw it in park and set up shop there.

Dud Zone 1 - Wimpytown

I call the first Dud Zone Wimpytown. Here is where you find all the guys that have essentially given up on the Dude Zone and have lost touch with, and the deep existential support of, their Sacred Individuality. These guys have really taken the directive of “be helpful and supportive” to Mama entirely to heart and become singularly focused on helping their pregnant partners manage all aspects of her struggles along the way. And to be fair, this aspiration comes from a truly noble place. They are to be rightfully commended for embracing their new Family Responsibilities and the idea of “being helpful and supportive” with 100% commitment. However, there are real costs to be paid here by both you and Mama when you end up here.

Guys in Wimpytown can be identified by several outward signs. They usually have a certain sense of resignation about them, their energy and vibe are low and slightly depressed, and can often be heard muttering “yes, dear”, “whatever you want, dear” and “sure, I’d love to go to the local baby store again for the 6th Saturday in a row.” And sure, these are all good in small doses. But the Wimpytown residents are truly broken. Having lost touch with their Sacred Individuality, they soon turn into simple “Yes Men” that are perpetually in a state of defeated readiness, turning over all responsibility to Mama for the next request or direction.

And while outwardly it may look like Mama is getting a lot of direct support here, ultimately, she is suffering too. Imagine how she must feel if she needs to always ask her man to do something, if she is left 100% in charge of figuring out all the Baby things on her own, if she is left fully responsible for all the time and project management that getting ready for Baby entails. She wants a partner in this journey, not a servant. She wants your journey into Fatherhood to bring out the best, brightest, and strongest parts of you, not the weakest ones. At the end of the day, Wimpytown is no good for anybody. So, when you find yourself slipping down into it than you need to, make a quick u-turn and reorient back up to the Dad Zone.

Dud Zone 2 - Jerkville

I refer to the other Dud Zone as Jerkville. Here is where you find all the guys that haven’t figured out that all these new Family Responsibilities that are coming up are indeed shared responsibilities. They are real and important demands that come with the newly emerging roles of parent and partner and are absolutely not just “women’s work” or “Mama’s responsibility.” 

Some of the guys in Jerkville are often holding on tight to outdated and unhealthy ideals of pregnancy and Baby stuff as “women’s stuff.” Others double down on their Dude Zone things, feeling like its “last call” and that they better get it in while they can. And sure, some guys are indeed full of good intentions and are simply misguided in thinking that they should be doubling down on professional goals to better connect to their idea of Dad-as-provider. But regardless of motive, they are all ultimately turning away from Mama, from Baby, and from the real importance of embracing the Family Responsibilities that the Dad Zone Thriving requires.

The key characteristic of true Jerkville residents is an underlying vibe of anger and resentment, often disguised as needs for independence. These guys are constantly trying to reengage their Dude Zone lives and all these new Dad Zone demands are felt to be attacks on their identity. They haven’t realized the need to separate out their Sacred Individuality from the Dude Zone yet, so still think they are one and the same. New (or repeated) requests from Mama always come at costs to the Dude Zone, so they are met with sighs or muted hostility, and even when these guys “team up” together to do Baby-related prep work they are disconnected, disinterested, and disengaged from the moment. They may say things like “I’m not pregnant, you are”, “I don’t care, you decide,” or simply “No, I’m not doing that.”

And again, I get it. I personally had zero interest in picking out teething rings, nursery décor, or even car seats. My take on a lot of my wife’s requests for teaming up in our 1st pregnancy boiled down to “I don’t know anything about these Baby things, I don’t really care about them, and I don’t know why this is such a big deal right now when Baby won’t even be here for 3 more months!” I would often get frustrated at her suggestions to go look for birth registry items, and I sincerely thought it was helpful to say things like “Look, why don’t you just go by yourself? You care about the nursery theme way more than I do. Wouldn’t it just be easier to go pick out whatever you want while I just chill and watch the game?” Jerkville alert!

Just like with Wimpytown, both Mama and Dad aren’t really happy here in Jerkville. Mama is feeling alone and abandoned here. Her partner and soon to be co-parent is not helping her, not teaming up with her, and certainly not further investing in the relationship. The guys here are resentful and frustrated. And even when they do reluctantly tag in out of a sense of duty they tend to do so in a disengaged and sullen manner. Again, Mama wants a partner on this journey, one who is deeply invested in growing the relationship. She wants this journey to further mature and grow your caregiving tendencies in preparation for Baby’s arrival, not highlight any selfishness or create further disconnection. At the end of day Jerkville is just as bad for everybody as Wimpytown, so when you find yourself hanging around you need to get out quick. 

We’ve covered the Dud Zone basics here in this post, and shown how they are different ways of failing to partner up with Mama and team up together. We advised getting out of them as soon as possible once you recognize that you’ve drifted too far into them. And yes, you will absolutely find yourself frequently drifting into both of them from time to time as the pregnancy progresses and the demands on you TME constantly increase as you transition from the 2nd to 3rd Trimester. This quicker orienting to the Dad Zone when you find yourself in a Dud Zone is the real key to Dad Zone success. And beyond basic success, Dad Zone Thriving is all about skillfully avoiding these Dud Zones as much as possible while simultaneously deepening and strengthening your relationship with Mama at each step of the way.

Come back next week for our final installment in this series where I share some specific tips and tricks to help you get better connected to Mama and better prepared for what comes next on your journey to Dad Zone Thriving.