New-Age Fathering Is More Than a Job : Parenting: Dads may be torn between job and family, but the real problem comes later when many fathers lose the bonds with their kids.

It was the grand opening of the late-night cafe at the Huntington Hilton on Long Island, around the time Friday night dissolves into Saturday morning, when the phone rang.

The call came early, but it was not unexpected.

Within minutes, Michael Hollander, the hotel’s new general manager, was tearing out of the parking lot, whizzing down the expressway, and skidding into West Milford, N.J., just in the nick of time.

His wife had gone into labor.

“I guess you could say that I could have gone home Friday night and I would have been there, but that would have meant constantly being there when I thought I should be here (at the hotel),” Hollander said of the night two years ago when his wife, Debra, gave birth to their son, Aaron.

At the cafe’s opening, “the dance club wasn’t running right,” Hollander said. “I felt I had to be there for that.”

So Michael Hollander went to work--and waited for the phone to ring.

Like an increasing number of men torn between their New-Age-Sensitive-Guy sensibilities and Father-Knows-Best responsibilities, Hollander faced a delicate juggling act.

Experts who study gender roles and the family say professional commitments, together with subtle messages from peers and supervisors and internalized societal traditions about what it means to be a good father, exert pressure on new dads not to do anything that might jeopardize the role they still identify with most--that of bringing home the bacon.

At the same time, expectant fathers, who have been practicing Lamaze breathing techniques with their wives, need to be in the labor room, want to witness the birth and are encouraged to bond with their newborn infant afterward.

The conflict erupted publicly recently when Houston Oilers offensive tackle David Williams, who was expecting the birth of his first child, bucked pressure from his team’s coach and manager and stayed with his wife through her labor. He stuck around even after the birth of his son, missing a game and getting docked $111,111.

“There is an invisible unwritten social contract between men and women at the time the children are born, and that social contract says that the man’s obligation is to be the financial womb--that’s his contribution to the nurturing process,” said writer Warren Farrell, the author of “The Myth of Male Power,” who believes that while women’s familial and professional roles have changed during the past few decades, men are still expected to abide by the old rules and serve primarily as breadwinners.

As fathers are encouraged to become more actively involved in parenting, Farrell said, they are being torn between two conflicting messages--”that if you don’t provide for the wife and child, you are neglecting your responsibilities. And, on the other hand, that if you don’t take off from work to be with your wife and child, you’re neglecting your responsibilities.”

Joseph Weinberg, a Madison, Wis., consultant who runs workshops on masculinity and violence, concurs. “It’s not critical that the rules of masculinity be written down somewhere,” he said. “Men carry those rules in their heads. We monitor ourselves.”

In the weeks after the Williams controversy, representatives of several large companies made public statements emphasizing their pro-family policies. But most also stressed that each employee is responsible for making his or her own decisions in striking the appropriate balance between work and home.

CMP Publications, a Manhasset, N.Y.-based publishing company known for its on-site day care program and generous family leave policies, said the company is unequivocal in its support for men who wish to be with their laboring wives. On at least two recent occasions, legal proceedings had to be postponed or reconfigured when fathers-to-be were called away for the birth of a baby, said spokeswoman Barbara Kerbel.

But even though men can take up to a year’s unpaid leave to be home with a baby, Kerbel said, no male employees have chosen to do so, preferring to take a few days off around the time their child is born.

“When people need time, they take it,” said Merrill Lynch spokeswoman Bobbie Collins. “Everyone knows what they need to do; we’re all responsible and mature adults.”

Most professional men interviewed say they would probably handle the situation the way Hollander did. He arrived in New Jersey just in time to take his wife to the hospital and skipped a board meeting the next day to stay by her side.

But as manager, he said, he felt he had to be at the hotel as much as possible. Even his wife agreed. “In my position, I’m responsible for what goes on--there’s nobody on top of me,” he said. “When you’re president or chairman of the board, you’re it.”

But in all the discussion of David Williams’ decision, an important point may have been lost. Many fathers, even unwed fathers, attend the births of their children; it is during the years and decades that follow that many of them drop out. “We’re losing sight of the real problem,” said David Blankenhorn of the Institute for American Values.

“If you want to get worried about fatherhood today, let’s get worried about the 28% of children born out of wedlock, and the half of all children who live apart from their fathers for a significant amount of time. That’s a much more fundamental problem.”