This particular billboard is displayed in my town, and it always gets my attention when I drive by. So I decided to blog my thoughts since that’s what bloggers do.
Image from Fatherhood.gov media page.
Look, I think Fatherhood.gov is an important project and has some great family resources. There is a lot of great information and wonderful programs mentioned on that website. My complaint is specifically about the take time to be a dad today billboards, and about the “reminders” for fathers to be dads. The message and takeaway of these take time to be a dad commercial and billboards convey that we have a serious problem with absentee dads.
It saddens me that we live in a world where men need to be reminded to be dads. It breaks my heart that we live in a society filled with the kind of people that would father a child and then disappear. That is one extreme, yes, but we do have a lot of single moms where the father is not involved in the child’s life at all. Then there are the situations where the father is around but works so much (or just does not come home often) that he never sees his children and family. Being a parent is the single most important job someone can have, mother or father – both need to realize this and do right by their children.
It shocks me every time people show surprise at how active my husband has been in our child’s life. That with his schedule of working four 10-hour days, he was the one able to take our baby to every weekly physical therapy appointment and DOC band check-up when he was just a wee little one. I certainly couldn’t – I worked full time and had just come off maternity leave so had zero time off. So I am to understand that kind of involvement is as rare as a magical unicorn? Because it isn’t – shouldn’t be at least.
I guess based on this message, I am very grateful to have my wonderful husband and father to my child, and to have been raised by my own great dad as well. Apparently, that is just not the norm, and that makes me sad. It makes me sad for society as a whole, and it makes me sad for the message we are sending our own children about the world around them. Fathers shouldn’t have to be reminded to take the time to be dads, just as mothers shouldn’t have to be reminded the same. Taking time to nurture our children is something that should be immediately engrained in our minds from the moment we become parents.
Have you seen these be a dad commercial billboards? What do you think?
Janice says
Why does a the existence of billboard prove that dads spending time with kids is “not the norm?” It can be a big problem without being typical.
A billboard telling people to make sure to buckle your seatbelt doesn’t mean that 60% of Americans aren’t using seatbelts.
The movement to demand 50% female participation in the workforce, and to shame stay-at-home moms, means that kids are having a hard time getting quality time with Mom OR Dad. Equal workforce participation means a doubling of the number of total workers, which flooded the market and massively drove down the value of labor- especially in occupations women gravitate towards (the ones not requiring much physical labor.) That means Mom and Dad make less money and have a harder time saving, buying a home, or affording retirement in the “new economy.”
It also causes a lot of young adults to look at the numbers and just decide that marriage and kids are not worth it.
tori says
I haven’t seen these ads in my neck of the woods, but they seem like a step in the right direction. No doubt it makes me sad that kids out there have dad’s that are not involved, but at least public health or whoever are trying to make change. I see hope in that! Parenting is the hardest job out there, and when you have grown up in a community where absent fathers are the general rule and not the exception, many may be tempted to take the easy way out. Hopefully this program will help to give father’s the support they need to maintain involvement with their kids!
Tori
http://www.themamanurse.com
Julie says
I hope so too Tori!
Erin @ Stay At Home Yogi says
You are lucky to have a great husband and to have been raised by an awesome dad yourself. I’m lucky in that way too. So many people are just not in that situation, very far from it. This campaign wouldn’t exist otherwise. One important thing I think they are trying to do is break stereotypes. Nurturing and fathering are not seen as “manly” in our society (whether we like it or not), which I why they have chosen a tough, masculine WWE fighter (which low income dads will likely recognize) and put him in a girly scenario of serving tea to his daughter. A lot of men, based on the culture they were raised in and they role models they may or may not have had, wouldn’t think a tea party with their daughter is something they should take the time to do.
I’ll stop there. I could talk about this forever! 🙂 I agree with you, that it is a sad issue to address, but it is absolutely necessary.
Julie says
I like how you analyzed this 🙂 Yes, they did take a tough man and are showing him playing a girly game. That is a great way to break stereotypes. It is just sad that it is so necessary, but I hope with this campaign we’ll not have this issue continue in future generations.
Lana says
I haven’t seen these. I do find it interesting the choice in model…long hair, tattoos, perhaps Latino? They’re definitely portraying a type here. I had a marriage & family teacher who really drilled into us not to have unwanted children, and I know I did not want to have kids without a supportive partner. But, sometimes things don’t always turn out the way we hope or plan. When I taught art to foster kids, many of them had kids at a very young age (as teens) and this was very normal. When everyone they know is having kids young, they just accept it as reality.
Julie says
I do agree this billboard appears to target a minority audience. This particular model is a WWE fighter with his daughter.
Healing Mama says
Not making excuses for dads, but some didn’t have a good role model. Some men think that working and financially providing for the family is enough. They don’t know that being a father actually requires a little more than that. Yes, it’s sad but it’s great they have a resource like that for dads.
Julie says
That’s true that not having a good role model creates a perpetual issue. Hopefully these programs will meet their purpose and maybe we won’t need such billboards in the future generations.