Real fathers fail to measure up to televised versions

Many young people blame constant work demands — seldom portrayed on TV — for draining their fathers' energy and time from parenting, says Janice Kelly, a communications researcher at Marymount Manhattan College in New York.

She showed episodes from eight comedies to 108 college students. The programs were as diverse as The George Lopez Show, The Simpsons, My Wife and Kids and Everyone Loves Raymond. She asked the students to rate TV fathers and their own on such qualities as support, guidance, acceptance of other family members and oppositional behavior (for example, ridiculing children). On every measure, TV fathers were rated significantly better than the students' own dads.

Several studies confirm that fathers are spending more time than ever on child care, says Vincent DiCaro of the non-profit National Fatherhood Initiative. It's unknown whether Gen X and Y fathers — born between 1965 and 1994 — will be seen as more nurturing than baby-boom fathers, DiCaro says. There's very little research on the parenting of earlier generations of men, he says.

"It's disturbing to think that kids might judge their dad as worse than Homer Simpson," he says. "Ward Cleaver was one thing — nobody could measure up — but sitcom dads today are flawed at best."

photo & story courtesy usatoday.com, 6/14/07