Dads are Men Too

There's an unspoken camaraderie among fathers. Think of it as a poorly disguised (often poorly dressed) secret society. I mean, I knew dads existed before I became one. I saw them, talked to them, and probably made fun of them. After all, we dads are easy targets. We carry diaper bags with pictures of ducks on them, go to bed before the night clubs even open, and drive minivans. Not the mostly manly trademarks to be identified by.

And Hollywood doesn't help with this dads-as-unmanly image. The goofy, Hawaiian shirt clad dad who aspires to have the perfect family vacation is the modern archetype of "the old man" in the movies ever since National Lampoon introduced us to Clark Griswald. Movie (and TV) dad is dorky, he makes corny jokes, and he can be counted on to attempt a manly activity and fail spectacularly ( e.g., he falls off a motorcycle, gets hurt arm wrestling, or can’t lift the lightest dumbbell).

There was a movie that recently came out on DVD called The Change-Up that was able to demonstrate this in a two minute preview. (Disclaimer: I didn't actually watch this movie. It was described as "too raunchy and vulgar" for me by a friend so I'm judging the proverbial book by its cover to an extent. But the preview alone illustrates my point). It's about a man's man bachelor and a dorky dad changing bodies.

And how do we know who's who? The fast-living bachelor is the well dressed, irresponsible party animal, who goes home with a different woman every night. The dorky dad is the guy with the ho-hum, pay-the-bills job, who changes diapers and can't coherently talk to women who aren't his wife. It's clear who's supposed to have the better situation here.

But why? Again, I don't know what direction this movie went in, but I doubt it ended with a photo montage set to "Stand by Me"  perfectly illustrating how being a man isn't about doing whatever you want, but taking on responsibilities and making sacrifices. To be fair, that wouldn't make a very good movie. But disparaging all the dads out there as unmanly doesn't make for a very good society.

Hanging out with a group of friends the other night, who all happened to be dads (we're like antelope, safer in groups) one of them related this dad-ism. He was driving his family home, in a minivan of course, when his kids started telling him he needed to drive faster. When he asked why, one of them responded it was so they could win the race against the car beside them. He quickly and enthusiastically responded without irony, "we ARE winning the race, the safety race!"

So maybe the perception of dads in the movies isn't so far off. But as factual as the depictions of dads may be, the conclusion that dads are wimpy because they act responsibly and keep their kids safe is flawed. It's quite the opposite actually. It takes a real man to man-up and put a family first particularly in a culture that equates manliness with selfishness.

So, is Hollywood going to change the way it depicts the stereotypical dad any time soon? Probably not. After all, The Fast and Furious would be considerably less compelling if it was the Fast and the Fathers. But you know what? We're manly enough to deal with that.