I don’t know exactly how to explain it, but there’s something offensive about pushing a stroller. However, my Irish grandpa, who was very much a tough working man (he was a teamster and foreman at the local brewery — his wife never wore pants or even drove a car), used to push me around on a stroller when I was very small. He’d take me for walks down into the woods in a local park every morning. But I guess when you’re a tough old man you don’t have much left to prove.

The thing is, babies are a woman’s job. I know this because I had to take care of my daughter all by myself quite a bit when she was still arguably an infant. It was no picnic, and I could barely handle it, but I did. If mommy is in the picture, there’s no reason a man should be caring for an infant — men just aren’t equipped for it. It is not only humiliating, but counterproductive.

How would women feel if they were asked to change tires or jack up a car? How about split wood or hammer nails? Many may say “I can do that,” but the truth is that the vast majority of women would look ridiculous trying to do these things. There’s even a good chance they’d hurt themselves.

Probably one of the biggest problems in society now is that our economy and technology have evolved to the point where these man jobs simply aren’t as valuable or necessary as they used to be, but child care, due to the immense amount of time involved in raising children, remains a very important job; unfortunately it simply doesn’t pay. So men are increasingly useless, and you have guys getting shoved into the unnatural role of raising small children, whereas a father’s equal involvement with children should start around school age, when the kids are capable of doing a lot more for themselves and need the discipline and instruction that best comes from a masculine figure.

Unfortunately, young men simply don’t have all that much to offer, so the deal they get stuck with is often pretty lousy. In a number of major cities, young men are already out-earned by young women. This obviously changes power dynamics. This is why you see these guys with papooses.

This is not the first time this has happened, and it always ends in social disaster. What do young men do when they find themselves unneeded and pushed around by society? In most cases they eventually start banding together and taking things. I think we’ll see a lot more rejection of society’s mores by young men pretty soon. The bitchier and more imperious women get, the faster the seeds of insurrection will take root.