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Yes, I was almost hesitant to include this example in the OP, because I knew it would be misunderstood. I considered elaborating on this point further, but the post was already at the character limit anyway.
I don't think that men should slavishly adhere to this particular life track - get a wife, get a house, get an office job and climb the corporate ladder - merely because it is the currently fashionable view of what it means to "be a man". I don't want people to live lives of meaningless hedonism, but I don't want them to be rubes either. You first have to ask yourself if the woman is worth loving, if the society is worth serving (in this particular way).
If someone says they have no time to build a family because they have to go be a great artist or whatever, then that's fine by me. He'll probably fail of course, but this is no great catastrophe to himself or anyone else; the social organism can easily tolerate a small number of losses of this type.
For the great majority of men who don't have anything else going on, building a family is probably the most meaningful way they can spend their time.
There's a fuckton of selfishness hiding under that bushel, though; for every one guy who does become a star (or even manages to become a professional who can earn a living from their art), there's twenty who are just indulging themselves and will continue to be 'in a band' or whatever for years and never get anywhere.
I'm probably prejudiced, though, by the case I encountered in social housing of the guy who left his small kids to his elderly mother to take care of, because he had to go 'be an artist' (he was a musician). Of course he never made it as a career, but it was sure handy for him to be able to dump his responsibilities on his family and go off to live the way he wanted.
Well, there certainly might be. Or there might not be. It always depends on the specifics of the situation in question. It's certainly possible to use ostensibly noble goals as an excuse for laziness, hedonism, and all the rest; but sometimes a noble commitment really is just a noble commitment with no ulterior motives.
I agree with you that there's very unlikely to be anything praiseworthy about a man abandoning his children. He should have thought about the consequences before he had children, and he should have to live with those consequences even if he feels them to be a burden.
Yeah, my view is "You're single and don't have any committments? Go do what you like". But once you have dependents or committments, then man (or woman, this applies to the ladies too) up and do your duty.
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