Stop Praising TV Dads for Doing the Bare Minimum

From Redbook

This Is Us, this past TV season’s biggest show, featured tear-jerking moments, an incredible cast, and one of the hottest dads on TV possibly ever. As Jack Pearson, Milo Ventimiglia has earned accolades for his performance – and the character has been heralded as “best dad ever,” “Super Dad,” “the best dad on television.” “Has there ever been a TV dad as perfect as Jack Pearson?” one entertainment website mused.

That’s a great question, because before you can answer it, you have to examine another, more basic one: What makes a good dad, anyway?

In an excerpt from The Book for Guys Who Don’t Want Kids, author Scott Kelby shared his tips for expectant fathers, including not worrying, being affectionate, and not abusing your children. His last tip? Be present. “What [your kids] want most is your time. They want to be with you. They want your attention, your ear, your opinion, your focus – they just want to be around their dad,” he wrote.

Hear that, dads? All you have to do is be there. The bar is set so low for fathers that literally just showing up is a revolutionary idea.

Sure, that’s a reductive way of viewing some well-meaning (and still good!) advice, but it just highlights the fact that there are two wildly varied standards for parents.

To be considered a good mother, a woman must bounce back to a size 6 three months after giving birth, but if she takes a bit of time out of her day to go to the gym, she’s being neglectful. She must serve her kids nutritionally balanced, homemade food, but isn’t allowed to enlist any help to take the kids to the supermarket (where they must be on their most exemplary behavior) or to watch over them while she cooks said homemade meals. She’s not allowed to discipline her child in public lest someone take issue with her parenting methods, but if she doesn’t get her toddler under control in 30 seconds she’s too lax (and she better not raise her voice, or people most certainly will start talking).

But to be a super dad? Just, like, be there.

On This Is Us, there’s no doubt Jack Pearson loves his kids. But he’s also a borderline alcoholic and works a lot and basically just pops in for an occasional pep talk or a set of push-ups with an adorable child on his back. His wife, Rebecca (played by Mandy Moore), enacts the day-to-day discipline, and spends her every waking hour with her three kids with no time to herself. But when Rebecca says she wants to do something for herself – sing in a band a few nights a week – she’s considered overbearing and needy.

Both Jack and Rebecca have sacrificed their own dreams to provide the best lives possible for their three kids. But while the show portrays it as expected that Rebecca give up her aspirations to become a singer so she could raise a family – how silly of her to think it would be possible to make a living doing something that she did so well it made a man decide not to commit a crime because he was so entranced by her voice – it was depicted as noble of Jack to give up his passions for a higher-paying job in order to provide for his family.

When viewers see young Jack and Rebecca on This Is Us, it’s the 1980s, a time where traditional gender roles still meant the mom took care of the kids and the dad provided for his family. But it’s 2017, and nothing seems to have changed.

Mediocre fathering has been embedded in television and pop culture for years – decades, even. The parenting philosophy of Leave It to Beaver’s Ward Cleaver, the original archetypal TV dad, is relegated to reading the newspaper…and then giving a lecture to make sure everyone learned a lesson at the end of the half hour.

Full House‘s Danny Tanner, beloved by ’90s kids everywhere, was also a master of the end-of-episode lesson; a weird way of subtly saying that the wise dad always gets the last word. But don’t forget that as a single dad, Tanner needed the help of not one but two other men (and Aunt Becky!) to raise his three daughters.

The idea of a man actually parenting is still, nearly two decades into the new millennium, so novel that CBS’s sitcom Man With a Plan – starring Matt LeBlanc as a contractor who, when his wife goes back to work, discovers that parenting is actually kinda hard!! – is doing so well, the network renewed it for a second season.

Moms on TV are held to a much higher standard – a mom trying hard to provide for and be present with her children, whom she loves unconditionally? That’s just what moms are expected to do. In fact, women on TV are shown feeling guilty when they aspire to do more than just be a caretaker.

The bar is set so low for fathers that literally just showing up is a revolutionary idea.

On HBO’s recently wrapped miniseries Big Little Lies, a drama full of fantastically complicated female characters, Laura Dern’s Renata was a high-powered CEO (explains that gorgeous house) who constantly worried that she wasn’t present enough as a mother. Reese Witherspoon’s Madeline and Nicole Kidman’s Celeste both felt guilty that they needed more than just their role as moms to feel fulfilled in their lives. The dads were also…there ( but come on, BLL was all about the women and you know it).

And there’s one major other area where the standards differ for TV moms and dads (and it goes without saying that it applies IRL, too). Moms, in addition to all their other priorities, always have to look good. Over on ABC’s American Housewife, a sitcom about about a mom struggling to keep up with her fellow mothers as she raises her kids in a perfect-seeming suburb, Katy Mixon’s Katie Otto is sarcastic, honest, and obsessed with the fact that she’s actually the “second-fattest housewife in Westport.” Mombod: an affliction so terrible that the premise of an entire series hinges upon how it’s the least desirable trait you can have as a woman (see: American Housewife).

Weirdly, that’s the exact opposite problem men have on television (and in real life). Dadbod: a hot trend, subject of memes, and the favored physique for many a TV sitcom husband. See: any Kevin James sitcom (The King of Queens, starring average-bodied James and his hot, skinny wife Leah Remini, or CBS’ new Kevin Can Wait, starring James and his hot, skinny wife Erinn Hayes). It’s a physical reminder that TV dads are allowed to get away with something – in this case, not taking care of themselves – that women would never be allowed to forgo.

None of this is to say that Jack Pearson – or any of his television ilk – are bad dads. And in Jack’s case, he’s clearly trying hard to provide for and be present with his children, and there’s no question he loves them unconditionally. Same with other universally lauded “good” TV dads, like Friday Night Lights‘ Coach Taylor (clear eyes, full hearts, and all that – though maybe a better parent to his players than his actual daughters), Veronica Mars‘ Keith Mars, Glee‘s Burt Hummel, The Cosby Show‘s Cliff Huxtable.

The problem is that they – and the rest of their compatriots – have to do the bare minimum to be considered good.

So, despite the fact that it’s 2017 – we’re supposed to have flying cars and recreational space travel to Mars by now – our parental expectations are still stuck in the old millennium. Socially, women are still responsible for child-rearing and outside careers are just a bonus (if not a hinderance). Men? They’re expected to have outside careers, and we should be so lucky if they spend time with their kids. In fact, we’re told to praise them for…well, just showing up. That would never pass for a mom.

Isn’t it time to expect more from everyone? Don’t disparage moms who want identities outside of their children (or the ones who are dedicated to running their households, either), and don’t let dads scrape by just doing the bare minimum and then praise them for it. Everyone deserves more than that, especially the next generation.

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