Deadbeat Dads?

Hey there, Unc: What’s with all the negative images of men, especially fathers, in movies and TV shows? I’m not asking for Father Knows Best, just some fairness here. Not every dad is a deadbeat. – Good Dad

Dear Good Dad: You are so right. Many shows feature dads who are 1. Divorced so they can have affairs with women twenty years younger (no one loves or has sex with his wife, right?) and 2. Those who work or play too much and have ignored their children. There’s always a plot crisis, of course, and it happens on the weekend when Dad has the kids. By conquering evil against impossible odds, the dads win their children’s admiration and sometimes win back their ex-wives’ love.

What a crock! The dad who works for 30 years at a boring job so he can keep his kids in food and clothes and college is the real hero. Fathers and mothers both know that compromises are necessary to meet inflated prices at the grocery store.

Here’s a true fact: Showing real heroes who work at tedious jobs and hurry home to their wives and children would be BOOOORING. I don’t know why. It wasn’t boring for fans of Father Knows Best, but that show wouldn’t be watched now. There have to be antagonisms, one of which is a bad relationship with the ex-wife and subsequent snarky relationship with the kids.

In those movies with deadbeat dads, the kids are usually smart-mouthed morons who have not been taught to mind their manners. It’s out of fashion to say “sir” — or even think “sir.” We can thank modern parenting theories for kids who think that saying “go fuck yourself” to their parents or a cop is acceptable behavior.

Parents who want to be best buddies with their kids are the ones who suffer the most.  Their kids grow into delinquents who want all the perks but none of the prerequisites of living with mom and/or dad. If you’re lucky enough to know a family with 11 kids, you’ll see what I mean. There’s so much chaos in large households that parents lower the boom from the beginning. Their kids have to do the chores, help each other, get good grades, shut up. There’s no time for teen-age eye-rolling, backtalk, slamming doors, blame games, questioning authority. Kids in large households have responsibilities; they can’t wait until age 35 to grow up.

Unfortunately, Elon Musk is one of only three families I know with LOTS of kids.  Everyone else is on the Pill after one or two.  Those kids are the “lab” for their parents’ child-rearing theories, and the kids go to schools where they learn their parents are stupid and old-fashioned. Teachers inform them they can report their parents to the police if they are suffering physical or mental abuse. What is mental abuse? Anything that makes them feel uncomfortable.

One of my sons came home from school one day and informed me that he could report me for psychological abuse after I ordered him to clean his room, shower and then come to dinner. He was in fifth grade and had never suffered a bad day in his life. His mother reacted with the typical horror of startled fear. I did not.

“You do that,” I said in my most controlled voice, “and they’ll send you to a foster home. We will not try to get you back.” I handed him the landline phone.

End of discussion. My son piled everything into his closet, took a shower and reported for dinner.

Unfortunately, this is not the reaction of most modern parents – as the dress code of their middle and highschoolers demonstrates. In schools without uniforms, girls show up with cleavage down to their nipples and skirts up to their panties. Boys show up with pants falling down to their cracks. You have to wonder, “How do their parents allow them to leave home like that?” Wonder no more. Their parents are afraid to give them psychological anguish. But the real anguish occurs when the girls wind up pregnant.

Which brings me slightly off-subject: jeans with lots of holes.

What kind of a trend is this? It’s stupid for one. It’s ugly for two. It shows lack of respect in the school environment for three. It’s not warm for four. It’s not protective for five. It’s ridiculous for six, seven, all the way to ten! I would not have allowed my kids to go to school, much less to the grocery store, like this. It would not happen. I don’t care how much they whine: “All the other kids do it.” I use my mom’s favorite retort: “Would you stick your head in the fire if the other kids did?”

The answer then was “No!” The answer today? Maybe.

OK. Back to deadbeat dads in media. It’s just a dramatic device, one that is not very appealing if you’re a man. Women used to be the silly people in plots. Now they have muscles of steel and they know more – way more – than men. Today men are the characters who need shaping up, so they are cast as deadbeats until they prove themselves. Why should they have to prove themselves? Only because the plot demands some push and pull, and nice, cooperative people are the ones we marry, not the ones we watch.

More women are walking out on their families now. In the future we will see their muscles of steel applied to winning the respect of their abandoned children. Who knows? Maybe children will get a new plot twist: With the assistance of artificial intelligence, not parents, they will set up their own communities and make war on adults. That would NOT be boring. It would also not be new!