Doofus Daddy

This post is actually the result of an email that I saw from a friend of my wife. It explained a card that she had just read that made her think of me of all people. The card basically showed a picture of a baby getting a bath in a sink full of dirty dishes and the caption read, “why dads shouldn’t babysit”. LOL. First, it only took a second for me to think the exact opposite. Isn't it actually quite ingenious that the father was not only multitasking by cleaning the baby AND the dishes simultaneously, and saving water in the process, but the GUY WAS DOING THE DISHES!! HELLO LADIES!! Damned if we do, damned if we don’t. When was is it that our culture somehow developed this stereotype that fathers are either invisible, incompetent, or second-rate parents? Most people (including dads, myself included) think mom is best suited to be the primary and most influential parent. One sees that mindset everywhere from the school nurse’s office to sitcoms. How often does the school nurse called a sick kid’s father at work to come pick her up? Does she have his work number at all? I'm willing to bet many have the NEIGHBOR as a second contact. Or watch the "sitcom" daddy who doesn’t know which end of the baby to put the bottle in, or who gags when changing a diaper, or completely ignores the child as they completely wreck the house while he's watching his favorite sprorting event. That’s the stereotype of Daddy as a dummy. In television while I was growing up, the sitcom father was presented completely different from today. The entire family sought him out to ask him advice and he was the family problem solver. The sitcom father of the past was presented as wise and intelligent. He was revered and honored by the whole family. He was respected. There were very few jokes poking fun at the sitcom father of the past. Usually, he was the one cracking jokes about other family members. Think back at some examples of these shows and how father’s were portrayed: "Happy Days", "Leave It to Beaver", "I Love Lucy", "Father Knows Best", with an exception being Fred Flinstone.
The sitcom fathers of today are often presented as the butt of jokes. They are made fun of by the family. They are often treated like one of the children and the wife has to look after them. The rest of the family does not seek them out for advice; instead they seek out the mother. The sitcom father is sometimes portrayed as so incompetent that he can't even complete simple household chores or look after the children. I know this creates humor, but this movement has permeated into commercials as well, and now obviously greeting cards!! Just think of some of the sitcoms today and the father’s role as a bumbling idiot, to clueless to take care of himself, let a lone a child or two. From the deranged father on “Malcolm in the Middle” to the generally incompetent "Everybody Loves Raymond", even if dad has a good job, like the star of "Home Improvement," at home he's forever making messes that must be straightened out by, you guessed it, mom.
So where did we fathers go wrong? There have always been some bumbling fathers like Dagwood Bumstead (duh) and Fred Flintstone, but now they're the norm. A study by the National Fatherhood Initiative found that fathers now are ten times more likely than mothers to be portrayed negatively on network television.
Still, no matter how much dad does in real life, I think he'll remain a doofus on television, and not just because he's a safe target and makes the audience laugh. In fact, Homer Simpson has become the longest-running doofus on television by appealing to guys, who have made "The Simpsons" one of the few sitcoms with a predominantly male audience. Homer embodies a famous mantra across all species, that motherhood comes naturally, but fatherhood must be learned. It's an awkward process, no doubt about that, and contrary to my wife's beliefs, it can't be learned from a book. Before I became a father, dads my own age often did look like doofuses to me as they struggled with drooling babies and their new domesticity - no more free time or disposable income, lots of chores to do, oftentimes general malaise with life and orders to take from wives/recent mothers ruling the home. Believe me, I’ve witnessed it all first hand, to many it was quite a mental beatdown.
As a big fan of the Simpons and someone without children at the time, I’ll be the first to admit that I saw Homer as hilarious and actually a decent portrayal of today’s absent father figure, looking for an out at every opportuinity. Looking back now, all those commercials and sitcoms that I would laugh at regularly were doing their job and painting the exact image in my head that on the surface, it appeared they were shooting for—that every father wanted to be everything BUT a father. Now? As a recently inductee into the fatherhood hall of shame, I realize that even in Homer’s case, yes, the guy may want to duck out for a beer sometimes, but when he sits on that couch with his family he does not look like a man longing to escape. He is at peace. I guess in me, fatherhood has created one more happy doofus.