stoltz
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Father Knows Best
June 11, 2008
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/roberts/080610
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Father Knows Best was one of the most widely-viewed and long-running TV shows of the 1950s. True, the program played to a romanticized image of middle-class Americana. But that beats the modern-day alternative of a raging epidemic of sexually-transmitted diseases, safe havens for abandoned infants, and 11-year-old girls wearing thong underwear.
Father Knows Best was yanked from the air in 1960. Before long the popular discourse was filled with the now-familiar litany of feminist grievance.
The women's libbers were especially troubled with the notion of the traditional family. Arch-feminist Simone de Beauvoir argued, "No woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children ... precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one."
Robin Morgan, former editor of Ms. Magazine, chillingly predicted, "We can't destroy the inequities between men and women until we destroy marriage." And Andrea Dworkin compared marriage to legalized prostitution.
Most laughed at the hyperbole. But the hairy-legged hags were dead serious.
Exactly how do you go about destroying the family which is, after all, the primordial unit of society? The best tactic, they decided, would be to go after the provider and protector image of Dear Old Dad.
Homer Simpson became emblematic of the well-intentioned but inept father. "Patriarchal" was inverted into an epithet synonymous with the mistreatment of women. "Paternalistic" was nearly as bad.
Media accounts began to tar men as wife-beaters, deadbeats, child abusers, clods, and all-around dufuses. Every one of those stereotypes was false or highly exaggerated, but no matter. As author Warren Farrell quipped, "father knows best" turned into "fathers molest."
Since men weren't up to the task, the government would need to step in, the Lefties argued. A series of legal opinions, laws, and government programs came along, all claiming to "empower" women: Roe v. Wade, Violence Against Women Act, welfare programs, maternal custody preference, draconian child support programs, and more.
If removing flocks of children from their fathers is your yardstick, these programs were successful beyond belief. From 1960 to 1990, says the Census Bureau, the number of American children living with their biological fathers plunged from 82% to 62%. As columnist Dennis Prager recently wrote, "The contemporary absence of men in boys' lives is not only unprecedented in American history; it is probably unprecedented in recorded history."
These fatherless children are far more likely to be poor, to use drugs, to experience a range of educational and behavioral problems, to be victims of child abuse, and to engage in criminal behavior.
But at least they're liberated from the baleful influence of their fathers!
Fortunately, family advocates saw where this was all headed and began to question the fem-think. Several groups are now coming to the rescue of daddy-hood (I'm including the web address if you want more information):
- This week the National Partnership for Community Leadership is holding a major conference in Washington DC to honor African-American dads: www.npclstrongfamilies.com
- Next week the National Fatherhood Initiative will release a landmark report, "The One Hundred Billion Dollar Man: The Public Costs of Father Absence:" www.fatherhood.org
- Fathers and Families has been working with the media to promote positive images of dads: www.fathersandfamilies.org
And several groups are working to increase father involvement after divorce:
- Marriage Savers has just come out in support of shared parenting, revealing that "of the six states that passed the strongest Joint Custody laws, five experienced the largest drops in the divorce rate." www.marriagesavers.org
- The American Coalition for Fathers and Children is urging citizens to sign a petition that reminds us, "Children thrive with the active involvement of both parents": www.acfc.org
- And the Children's Rights Council has succeeded in introducing a Congressional resolution in favor of joint custody: www.crckids.org
True, frazzled fathers don't always measure up to the iconic images of Father Knows Best. But on one point, these groups have hit the nail right on the head: a government program is a lousy substitute for a dad.
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allthumbs
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Oh, but wait. Wasn't it Hillary Clinton that told us "It Takes a Village" to raise our kids?
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stoltz
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Only if it's a Tuesday in an even month, but not during "that time of the month", or on a Thursday on odd-numbered months, but only if she is east of the Mississippi. IOW, whenever the hell she feels like changing her mind.
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gigi
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[quote]True, frazzled fathers don't always measure up to the iconic images of Father Knows Best.[quote]
I want to point out that the image of "frazzled fathers" is interesting, as it's assumed that they are not iconic... or noble. And yet whenever you see the "frazzled mothers" after divorce, you hear someone talking about how darned noble they are for juggling everything and not ending up on an insane asylum. The mother who is so frazzled that she considers drowning her kids is given sympathy, even... while the man who keeps his own sadness away from the kids and kills himself instead is pointed at as a pathetic soul who had emotional problems so thank GOD we kept him away from the kids and he didn't have the chance to infect them with his obvious suicidal thoughts!
I always find it interesting when a descriptive term applied to a man is seen as a negative when, applied to a woman, it would be seen as sympathetic.
Oh... thanks for this article Stoltz... I like the references/resources... and also do you notice... in a LEGITIMATE resource meant to be persuasive to people, just just crow among like-minded people, they actually SPELL OUT things like VAWA.... and one other thing about that.., maybe did you notice: if you've spelled out things like VAWA, you can use words like "draconian" in describing child support enforcement and it dosn't look quite as biased to do so?
I mean, a militant feminist would not like the word, but then she's also be offended at the whole article... but those who are in the "undecided" column of the joint parenting contraversy have a better chance of being persuaded by this article, because of it's complete report without too many perjorative or arcane language or acronyms.
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stoltz
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I always find it interesting when a descriptive term applied to a man is seen as a negative when, applied to a woman, it would be seen as sympathetic.
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The same as when you see a woman slap a man across the face, HE was the one in the wrong. Or when you see a woman in a movie throw a plate at a man, only to have it whiz by him and smash against the wall - it's downright hilarious (/sarcasm)! It's all how we've been programmed over the years to view things between genders - the same old women=weak/innocent and men=strong/evil labeling. It's not that that in itself is bad (although it is), but when you start getting things written into law and judged because of it is where things cross the line, IMO.
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Oh... thanks for this article Stoltz... I like the references/resources... and also do you notice... in a LEGITIMATE resource meant to be persuasive to people, just just crow among like-minded people, they actually SPELL OUT things like VAWA.... and one other thing about that.., maybe did you notice: if you've spelled out things like VAWA, you can use words like "draconian" in describing child support enforcement and it dosn't look quite as biased to do so?
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sigh
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gigi
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Heck, it's not as obvious as a slap on the face even... I don't know which is worse, the woman slapping a man and being considered "cute" over it... or entire sitcom sdevoted to proving that the man of the family is a socially inept fool who is incompetent with kids and needs to be treated like a child in front of his own children (Everybody loves Raymond)... in ONE episode the man looked at what this was doing to the kids, and was upset with it, but in general, the whole plot was devoted to him being the brunt of jokes from everyone else who were all so much more clever than him.
I want to see a sitcom where the guy is a REAL dad, COMPETENT and treated as if he's competent, where he refuses to allow people to treat him like a fool. Last one I remember like that was Cosby... and that ended in 1992... a whole generation ago. But heck, weren't there even times on that show where his lawyer-wife gave him the EYE and basically informed him that he was not right about this, that or the other thing? I guess that's realistic though in that none of us are perfect... but on that show, wasn't she portrayed as perfect?
I guess that's the problem... no matter how right a guy is, the gal is always MORE right, according to the media. GRRR.
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stoltz
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I know Cosby himself is a probably a decent role model as a father figure, but I never saw his sitcom so can't comment on it's content.
Someone recently in another thread gave a list of shows that portrayed single fathers in good light. Many of them were long outdated (e.g., Family Affair, Courtship of Eddie's Father) - that is they appeared before (or just on the front-end) of the feminist foray that sent the perception of a father in a completely different direction. Another on the list was "Two-and-a-half Men", but even on that show the single father is seen as a bumbling idiot with absolutely no backbone (of course it's a comedy, so what'd ya expect?).
Of course when it comes to women, shows like "Ugly Betty" are a hit. She's single (as is her sister on the show, who - interestingly - is a SINGLE mother of an obviously gay SON [wink,wink]), always in control, always bails out the male president of the company, and is ... well ... ugly (meaning, she is strong without the need for beauty to help her out). And let's not even get into the other characters of the show (the _gay_ MALE office worker [wink,wing again], the _power-hungry_ WOMAN, etc).
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jbar
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...A series of legal opinions, laws, and government programs came along, all claiming to "empower" women: Roe v. Wade, Violence Against Women Act, welfare programs, maternal custody preference, draconian child support programs, and more.
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In lists of changes to law which empowered women, why do they always forget to include "no-fault" divorce? Surely nothing could be more empowering to women than the very thing which, in the first place, permits the actual implementation of the potential harm to men, families and children cited in this article, and much more, to the woman's enrichment and benefit.
I predict that these no-fault divorces, resulting in fatherless families, would be reduced to practically zero if one spouse had to PROVE serious misbehavior by the other, or PROVE that there was a business relationship with their spouse, before they could get any presumptuous, so-called "marital" or "community" property in a divorce. And unless such misbehavior could be proven or it could be proven that one spouse had been denied the opportunity to work outside the home--because of their marital or parental obligations-- there would be no alimony, and further that unless it could be proven that one spouse is unfit for equal custody of children, then equal custody would be mandatory.
I would really like to know if anyone disagrees with me, or does not believe that the changes I have outlined above would go a very long way toward solving the problems mentioned in the article cited, and why. I have essentially posted this same proposal numerous times here and have yet to get a reply rationally criticizing it. Unless I can get such a reasonable reply this time I will conclude, finally, that there is no sensible justification for the failure of any right-minded person to strongly support my view and to help me to advance it.
Edited by jbar (06/12/08 08:04 PM)
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gigi
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To be fair, Ugly Betty began in latin america where stereotypes run rampant about gay males and beautiful women. It's set in a women's fashion magazine headquarters where physical beauty is highly valued. The intent is to bust the stereotypes by exaggerating them in this showcase of extremes. I understand that in latin america it was limited to one or two seasons as it's story was resolved in that length of time and they did not seek to find ways to extend it just becasue it was commercially popular. I've not watched it often, but if her homelife is also at issue and involves a single mom sister, I'd venture a guess that this is part of the hollywood twist to the storyline... added for the purpose of stretching it into infinity if the opportunity arose to make more $$ from the effort.
I'm actually not so troubled by the image of bitchy versus ugly women heads of business, as I am by the very poor image of fathers. And you're right that 2 & a half men show also seems like the guys involved are a couple of bumbling fools... the skirt chasing man-bo and his socially inept brother.
It might be a good idea to have someone interested in this subject contact the writers for some of these sitcoms, as well as the producers. Not that we would ever be able to get a return to the Father Knows Best type of father, but maybe we could help them find a commercially viable STRONG father type who had a brain and couldu manage social issues without being gay.
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jbar
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To be fair, Ugly Betty began in latin america...
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Who cares about "Ugly Betty" when men are being financially raped, legally, by their wives in courtrooms daily? Just what is it that you don't get, Gigi, about the principle of "Innocent until proven guilty" whether in a criminal court or a divorce court??
What peculiar weakness of mind is it that makes so many women incapable of understanding that the cruel punishments of so-called community property, alimony and theft of a man's children are administered to him with NO DEMONSTRATION WHATSOEVER being required that he is even remotely guilty of any behavior which would warrant such treatment? Anyone who self-servingly refuses to see the clear facts of the theft being perpetrated against men, in divorce courts, deserves the same punishment as the thieves--be them politicians, lawyers, judges, gold diggers or the "feminists" who so obstinately support and enable the vile behavior of these types of people!
Edited by jbar (06/13/08 02:16 AM)
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