The Wonders of Commercializing Fatherhood

By Rebeldad Brian Reid

Anyone who has spent any time over at my other side project, rebeldad.com, knows that I spend an inordinate amount of time moaning and complaining about how dads get marginalized in the media. And when I talk about the "media," I mean the media writ large, not only the news media.

Fatherhood continues to be a sitcom punch line. Dads are almost entirely missing in action in parenting magazines (there's a whole post coming on that one). And men showing their paternal side in commercials? Forget about it.

Take a look at the back-to-school ads, and let me know if you see a single one where the parent skipping through the mall or the office supply superstore or the department store is someone other than mom. Ditto ads for toys or household products or just about anything else (except, perhaps SUVs).

The net effect is a million subtle messages a day that kids are not part of the core responsibilities of American fathers. Now, I don't blame the TV for any lack of involvement, but it does create a more toxic environment for shared parenting, just as Ronald McDonald makes for a more toxic environment for healthy eating.

On the bright side, this may be changing. The geniuses on Madison Avenue have apparently discovered that dads really do care about their families, and this has become something of a media trend lately. First, there was a New York Times piece on dad inventors ("'This is one of the strongest trends we've seen,' said Ellen Galinsky, the president of the Families and Work Institute. '... Men are really different.' "). Then CBS News pulled together a piece on how macho diaper bags can make men into better fathers. (There are plenty of products on the market for modern dads, to enable them to be both hands-on and hip") Finally, AdAge determined that families, not gold handicaps, are the new status symbol (" 'Dads today define success as being able to spend time with the family,' says Peter Rose, a trend interpreter at Yankelovich Partners" in the article titled "Dads Are the New Moms, so It's Time to Start Selling Them Stuff.")

Maybe, just maybe, that means us "really different, hands-on and hip" successful dads will now be deluged by slickly produced 30-second spots during 'Grey's Anatomy? As much as I like to decry the overcommercialization of everything, I can't help thinking that would be a little cool.

Brian Reid writes about parenting and work-family balance. You can read his blog at rebeldad.com.

By Brian Reid |  August 30, 2007; 7:25 AM ET  | Category:  Dads
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