'Bad Dads'
a Bad Idea
by
Kathleen Parker
©2008
Of those everyone loves to hate, few can
compete with the deadbeat dad for longevity.
How much do we hate him? While we're
counting the ways, Fox TV may try to help America organize its
contempt and put a face on this loathsome character.
Protest Fox's New Reality Show Bad Dads!
Bad Dads, redundant in these
male-bashing times, is the name of a new reality show Fox is
considering. While the network reviews the pilot, outraged fathers'
advocates are trying to nip this bad seed before it buds.
As proposed, the show features a
bounty hunter sort of character, which is not an entirely fictional
device. Bounty hunters do exist and pursue noncustodial parents who
are behind in child-support payments -- for a cut of the proceeds,
sometimes as much as a third.
In the pilot, Jim Durham, director of
the National Child Support Center, tracks a struggling mother's
wealthy ex, whom he confronts at a country club. According to the
program's description, showdowns typically would be preceded by
phone calls urging Dad to be a do-right man.
When appeals to conscience fail,
Durham investigates assets and does whatever is necessary -- getting
mortgages foreclosed and cars repossessed -- until everybody gets
paid.
Executive producer JD Roth describes
his creation as "justice."
"It's a show that depicts the
sacrifice and heartache of incredibly brave women on behalf of their
kids and then ends in the most gratifying way possible."
Really? How gratifying can it be for
children watching television to see fathers humiliated in front of
the world? Not much is an easy guess.
For that reason, among others,
fathers' advocates are justifiably outraged at this new exploration
of human prurience. Glenn Sacks, a Los Angeles-based dad advocate
and radio personality, along with Fathers & Families and the
American Coalition for Fathers and Children, has launched a
pre-emptive strike against Fox on his Web site (glennsacks.com/fox
baddads).
Chief among his objections is the
potential harm of this image to children, who already have suffered
broken homes -- and especially to the few who might actually see
their fathers publicly characterized as someone who doesn't love
them.
Bad Dads is just the latest insult to
men and especially fathers who feel, appropriately, that they've
been maligned and minimized through television programming and
advertising. In sitcoms, men are typically buffoons. And fathers, if
they exist, are inept and unreliable, while Mom is a paragon of
virtue and competence. Television executives and advertisers may
profit from such "entertainment," but who's having fun? Apparently,
women are. Four out of five network sitcom viewers are female.
More to the point, Bad Dads
reinforces a stereotype that is neither accurate nor fair. The rich
pig who leaves his wife and kids for a pole-dancing aerobics
instructor -- or who enjoys extended martini lunches with his golf
pals -- is far from the norm.
The more accurate picture of a
deadbeat dad is an unemployed or underemployed bloke who sees more
jail cells than golf courses. A common sequence of events for the
poorest deadbeat dads goes something like this: Fall behind in child
support, get arrested and put in jail, lose your job, fall further
behind in child support.
Not exactly a formula for
rehabilitation or future employment.
One does not have to excuse
irresponsible men who abandon their children to recognize that the
deadbeat dad story is sometimes more fable than fact. People who
work in the child-support loop know that the biggest barrier to
child-support payment is unemployment, yet this message seldom seems
to penetrate the zeitgeist.
Clearly, some men are sinners and
some women are saints. But sometimes the reverse is true. In fact,
noncustodial mothers are 20 percent more likely to default on child
support than noncustodial fathers, according to U.S. census data.
But we don't see a reality show aimed at humiliating moms.
Is this because women, who have had
fewer opportunities historically, are viewed as more deserving of
the benefit of the doubt?
Or is it because civilized people
would strenuously object to the public ridicule of moms whose
children may be watching?
It's preferable to imagine the
latter. The question is why we feel no such decency toward men and
the children who love them.
Protest Fox's New Reality Show Bad Dads!
Kathleen
Parker can be reached at kparker@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5202.
