Goofus and Gabsent
Folks in the Men’s Rights movement tend to really enjoy trotting out “sitcom dads” as evidence that Evil Feminizing Culture is Hating on the Menz.
The usual suspects:
and
Given what I’ve personally seen out of men born in the late 40’s and 50’s, MRA’s really ought count their blessings.
I tried hard to have a father, but instead I had a dadNirvana, “Serve the Servants”
At the core of the Doofus Dad character isn’t a stupid man, though that’s what tends to rankle the male egos when this conversation happens—that Ray Barone is always wrong, and that Homer is functionally retarded. But, really, it’s not stupidity at core. The Doofus Dad works, and works even among male audiences, because at core the character is a father that would rather be at work, or at the bar, or on the golf course than at home. It works because it’s familiar.
Among my friends that had fathers around, nearly every one of those dads a “hobby.” Fishing, golf, hunting, motorcycles, piloting, drinking, whatever. It was always something that took up a huge amount of time and didn’t work well with kids under 14. And, in order to acquire the time to do these things, the men in question had essentially make themselves 98% useless around the house. It’s not that any of those men were stupid. But, they’d conditioned their families to expect no more and no less than taking out the garbage and mowing the lawn—anything else is something they wouldn’t do “right.” Not couldn’t, but wouldn’t. And, they’d duck out with a good chunk of free time.
And, that’s reflected on television. That’s the dad that a lot of people recognize. The guy that would have rather been fishing.
So, for all the complaints that sitcom dads are dumb, we’re talking about characters that tend to have jobs they’re good at (Dan Conner of Roseanne and Al Bundy of Married with Children being notable exceptions). These are ‘stupid’ men that set up elaborate lies to get out of the house—Ray Barone, in particular, was on a constant campaign to get away from his family. These characters don’t like their kids. They may love their kids… but they don’t like them. The defining characteristic of the sitcom dad isn’t that he’s dumb—it’s that he wishes he weren’t a father.
Now, given what I’ve heard people my parents age say, I don’t suppose that the Grudging Father—the man that wishes he hadn’t had kids, or wishes that he hadn’t married to begin with—is new in the slightest. It wasn’t new in the 50’s when, if we are to believe the men’s magazines of the time, the Grudging Father and Trapped Man was the norm. And, it wasn’t new in the 80’s, either. What happened in late 80’s, as the last of the “perfect family” sitcoms came to a close, is that the Grudging Father replaces the Wise Father (Heathcliff Huxtable, Steve Keaton, etc.) as the norm on prime time television series.
And, the Grudging Father comes across as an ass. A reliable ass, maybe, but… an ass.
JACK
I didn’t know my dad. Well, I knew him, till I was six. He went and married another woman, had more kids. Every six years or so he’d do it again—new city, new family.TYLER
He was setting up franchises.From Fight Club
The other strikingly familiar father to folks under a certain age is the one that’s simply not there at all.
About half of the people I’ve been friends with over the years had some version of the absentee father. And, there are more than one type, ya know. There’s the one that’s just vanished into thin air, never to be heard from again. There’s the one that’s out of state and only seen during the summer for two weeks. The one that’s too busy with the new family and wished you’d never been born. The one that shows up out of nowhere every couple of years, and expects everyone to be hunky dory about it. The imprisoned father. The drunk and/or drug addicted one. The one your mom swears you’re better without.
Mine has managed an interesting combination over the years. A couple of years gone into thin air. Some rehab. The franchise effect.
He offered The Big Apology for it all when he thought his dad was going to die.
Some people don’t even get that.
The usual story (if they bother) with the absentee father is, “Blah, blah, whineycakes, it’s all your mother’s fault.” Or, the court’s fault. Or, the Sky Fairy. Whatever. Anyone but them, right? If only the path had been free of all obstacles, maybe he could have done the right thing. But, you certainly weren’t worth all the obstacles, were you?
By the time I was 12 or 13, I remember having a conversation with my mother about it all. I said, “Boys my age are gonna have to wing it—there are no dads. How will they know how to be dads?” She said she thought they’d do a better job, out of sheer determination to not become their fathers.
It doesn’t appear to be working out that way.
But, it has lead to the knee-jerk “responsibility” response from a certain segment of the population when the subject of men come up—that a Real Man is mostly defined as someone that won’t bail on, beat up, or otherwise fuck up his children. And, there are a lot of people out there have absolutely no expectation that any significant percentage of men are even capable of parental “responsibility” before the age of 45 or so. And, sometimes not even then.
When men want to complain about how they are viewed by the population at large, they tend to hone in on the Stupid Dad, the Incapable Man, the Grunting Idiot. They beer-swilling football addict. The grunter, the paying for dates. The Missing Dad isn’t nearly as meaty a subject to dive into, despite the fact that so many people have one in their lives. But, how do you complain about the Invisible Man?
TYLER
Our fathers were our models for God. And, if our fathers bailed, what does that tell us about God?JACK
I don’t know…TYLER
Listen to me. You have to consider the possibility that God doesn’t like you, he never wanted you. In all probability, He hates you. This is not the worst thing that can happen…JACK
It isn’t… ?TYLER
We don’t need him…
Some men complain about what behaviors are expected of them—Poobah went out of his way to let me know about his “testosterone-infused” list of manly complaints in yesterday’s comments.
He says, “Being a man is being defined by what you do rather than who you are.” Maybe that’s true if you are… Batman? (“It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me”)
Most of us don’t live in a Batman movie.
Just saying.
If you “are” an “immature asshole,” you do not, by process of Manly Osmosis turn into “an immature asshole that beat GTA 3 in one 24 hour stint, the day he bought it.” You still “are” just an asshole.
I find it really dubious when dude complains that he can’t live up to the expectations of a modern man.
Josh said earlier this morning, “I don’t think that I should have to make a six figure salary, support seven children or bench press a Geo to prove my manhood.”
Well, that’s great.
No ones asking you to.
Our culture, in fact, doubts your ability to clean up a counter top. It assumes that it’s possible that you will abandon your children. And, it takes it for granted that acting as if your family ruined your life is the norm for a grown man.
The question is… does the culture doubt you guys because of unfair stereotyping?
Or, does it doubt you because other men paved the path of low expectations for you?
tags: manliness
“Or, does it doubt you because other men paved the path of low expectations for you?”
Ouch. And right on target.
— SlyCivilian Apr 3, 05:09 PM #
In this case the media is just reflecting the society that spawned it. If half the population had a crappy Dad…well, that’s going to be reflected in what the people who write for TV choose to write about (and let’s remember that most of those TV writers are non-feminist men, who may well be writing about their own fathers).
Also, the idea that men feel they can’t meet our culture’s standards…there are cultures for which I actually would buy that as a valid argument, but this one? America, or the UK? Surely you jest.
— CassandraSays Apr 3, 06:32 PM #
I do believe that John Tiernney said that the bumbling sitcom dad was a direct result of pandering to a female audience. Of course... it's John Tiernney. That's how he operates.
Thing is that more men watch The Simpsons than women. And, arguably, Homer Simpson is the worst example of this.
— Veronica Apr 3, 06:39 PM #
My apologies V. I wasn’t trying to go out of my way to show off anything. I offered the link simply as an example of thoughts men have sometimes.
I don’t see those things as complaints, merely how men feel sometimes.
You’re correct that men help set the expectations of what their behavior should be, but so do women. But if someone can’t live up to another’s expectations, it’s usually because they don’t know what their expectations are of themselves. It’s easier to blame it on someone else than look at yourself. That’s human nature.
Men do sometimes bring up sitcoms as examples of stereotyping. Like you said, stereotypes work because they fit. But look at it this way, I’ve seen hundreds of sitcom blonde bimbos. I’ve even met some in real life, but I don’t use that experience to infer that all women with blonde hair are bimbos. Just as not all men are asshats any more than all women are brainless, helpless twits.
As for the parental influence, I was born in the 50s. I had a Dad who worked strange shifts and was away often. He didn’t do it because he wanted to avoid me, he did it because he was our family’s sole financial support.
I also had a schizophrenic mother. He never abandoned the family. He coped with a situation that would have driven off 90% of the population, male or female, because that was his expectation of what makes a man. He promised to support in sickness and health and he did.
My Dad consistently showed me he cared. If I called him at work with a problem, he did his best to help me. When he could, (he was an air traffic controller, so he couldn’t just get up and leave) he’d come home to help.
And finally, he spent as much of his time off as humanly possible taking me on outings, reading me stories and just spending time with me. He didn’t complain about it. He did it.
I learned from his example and I try to do as much as I can for my daughter. I come home early. I go to track meets. I take her to dinner or just talk. I also do more than half the housework and all of the cooking and shopping. And, I do all the “manly” stuff like fixing things, cutting the grass, and taking out the garbage. I do these things because that is my expectation of myself.
I guess my point is that it isn’t easy being male or female. I’ve had women treat me like an incompetent boob solely because I have external plumbing. I don’t complain about it. It happens. But I do get a little peeved when a woman does that and turns around to trash all men as incompetent boobs without ever verifying it’s true. I’m not implying that’s true of you or the other commenters, but it does happen and probably more often than you might think.
In any case, I think this is a pretty interesting topic. Anything that helps people see what’s on the other side’s mind works for me and this thread fits the bill nicely.
Thanks.
— Omnipotent Poobah Apr 3, 08:53 PM #
one of my biggest pet peeves is hearing that a father is “babysitting” his kids. and i can’t tell you how many of my friends, when they manage to get away, feel like they have to rush back because the father is going to go crazy if he has to watch the kid(s) for longer than two hours. fuck that. when and if i have a child and i’m with someone, i want to know i can grab my keys and say i’m going out without having to first write down ten pages worth of instructions. you get what you expect i think.
— patricia Apr 3, 09:27 PM #
Poobah—no need to apologize! You’re totally entitled to your opinion. And, really, any excuse for a Batman reference!
;)
I’m sorry about your mother. That sounds really hard.
I do think that nowadays, a LOT of what folks consider masculine/feminine is generationally dependent, too.
— Veronica Apr 3, 09:56 PM #
Veronica—what you said about “love” not “like” has a lot of truth. I know many dads like that. Mine wasn’t quite, but was certainly somewhat absentee. My husband’s was pretty much absentee for much of his childhood, after which it was too little too late.
The “love” and “like” is sad because I wonder if my daughter feels that about me. I’m not there as much as I’d like to be because of work. And when I am, I feel an overwhelming sense of love. I worry that she may feel I don’t have enough “like” because if I did, I’d find a way to work less. But it’s not easy. Hopefully, women with long hours don’t become the equivalent of bad dads…
— Octogalore Apr 3, 10:07 PM #
Patricia—that “babysitting” nonsense irks me, too. But, of course, so do those “10 Page Instruction” women that act like the house is going to burn down if they’re not there every damned second.
— Veronica Apr 3, 11:43 PM #
Ocotogalore—I don’t know. I think that most kids past seven or so know that “no work” means “no food” and “no home” and “no fun.” Long hours are not nearly as hurtful as a parent that has a crap attitude when they are home. As long as you're happy to see her at the end of the day, you’ll probably be okay! :)
— Veronica Apr 3, 11:54 PM #
My dad was a rather interesting combination of several types. (Well, he still is ;) He was very devoted to us, and his way of expressing that devotion was working hard, making money and making sure we had a house, food, clothing, etc. He spent time with us, but not as much as some fathers because he was always working. He had a fulltime job (he was a welder off shore) and then another full time job when he got home. (I grew up on a farm. Loooots of work there.) And he did it all because he felt it was his job, as a husband and father, to take care of us. Which was great, but it left a gap emotionally. Other girls talked about oh, talking to their dads and I was like….people do that? Really? I mean, I talk to my Mom, sure. But my Dad? Huh. I never doubted he loved me. That was clear. But I wasn’t sure he liked me. Or understood me. Add to that that his dayjob took him, li terally, out of the house for two to four weeks at a time and well. . .I blame that for my inability to being in a ‘normal’ relationship to this day. I mean, I cannot stand to have a SO around every damned day. I got insane!
My relationship with Dad has gotten a lot better, now that I’m an adult and he’s been forced into retirement. (He hurt his back when I was a senior in high school. And the shock of having him home all the time was pretty damn extreme.)
— Zan Apr 4, 04:33 PM #
Well, I’m not going to get into my dad, but just to say, this post rocked on many levels. My dad is Homer Simpson meets Fred Phelps. Scary, huh?
— JackGoff Apr 4, 10:10 PM #
Jack, that’s terrifying.
— Veronica Apr 4, 11:17 PM #
Like others are saying, you missed one absentee type, the workaholic. That was my father, while part of it was because he had to earn the money, I do think that part of it was to get away from us too, and he liked his work. He would leave by 5 or 6 in the morning and would come home anywhere from 7 to 10 at night. There was no overtime, he was on salary, so he didn’t have to do this all the time. I think he just loved his job. In fact he retired three times, the first two times he couldn’t take the boredom and asked the owner of the company to take him back. My stepmother laid down the law and told him to retire for good though so that they could travel and do other things together.
My husband is a better father than my dad, or his. Even so, my oldest son has him in his cell phone address book as “Homer Simpson”. LOL
— Donna Apr 5, 04:55 PM #