By Dr. Alex McFarland for THE CHRISTIAN POST
TV and Hallmark need to rethink their tired dad tropes. Try to find a Father’s Day card that doesn’t link dads to beer, power tools or stupidity. Similarly, try to find a sitcom without a dufus dad. Sitcoms satirize family life because they appeal to themes most viewers understand: weird uncles and neighbors, dad jokes and mothers calming the chaos.
Since 1947, family sitcoms have had three themes: Dads, moms and kids who are savvy beyond reality or absurd beyond belief.
Early TV dads, like Ben Cartwright, were intelligent and industrious. Moms were senseless, uninformed and barely self-sufficient. Carol Burnett made the stereotype into a 50-year comedic career. Jackie Gleason’s loud fool next door took the TV dad arc to one extreme. It has alternated between extremes for decades, from loving, funny, successful Uncle Phil of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and Richard Cunningham of “Happy Days” to chauvinist, racist, nitwits like Archie Bunker and Homer Simpson.
Am I weary of the dad tropes and stereotypes? Who isn’t, but I also know that half of a sit-com is comedy, and nothing gets a laugh, a teen eye-roll or a mom sigh like a one-liner from a daft dad. While we wait for Hollywood and Hallmark to rediscover dads who work for NASA and love their wives, here are 10 steps to be the dad you, your family and society yearn for:
Ten ways to break the sitcom dad mold
- Pray together. Welcome God into your family. Sundays, yes, but also into your home, dinner table and habits.
- Shelter your family. Limit exposure to caustic social media and influences that defy or mock values and morals. Protecting their minds is more important and lasting than protecting their health.
