Washington Post: ‘Father Knows Jack’
The Washington Post is getting in on the Father’s Day week dad-bashing that we’ve also seen from TIME magazine (click here), the nationally-syndicated OPUS cartoon (click here), Barack Obama (stay tuned), and others.
The article “Father Knows Best? These are ‘facts’ that dads have imparted to their kids. Not a big deal, right? Except that they’re all wrong,” while more light-hearted than most other recent Father’s Day week attacks, nevertheless reinforces the mainstream media stereotype of dads as useless blowhards.
The article asserts that fathers who take their kids to museums answer their kids’ questions confidently, even though they “don’t have a clue.” According to the Post, “The phenomenon of the ‘know-it-all dad’ is a familiar one to the docents, curators and keepers of America’s museums and zoos.”
On the web there’s a companion photo montage called “Father Knows Jack,” (pictured), featuring photos of fathers with their children coupled with insulting captions about the fathers’ alleged ignorant pomposity.
To write a Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post regarding Father Knows Best?, click here.
Father Knows Best? These are ‘facts’ that dads have imparted to their kids. Not a big deal, right? Except that they’re all wrong
By Steve Hendrix
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Doug Hardy was barely inside the door of the National Air and Space Museum when he made up his first “fact.”
On a sunny morning a few days before Father’s Day, Hardy and his son Andrei were huddled under the Mercury capsule. Like countless dads before him, he was explaining rocket science to his boy, in this case how the mottled heat shield protected John Glenn from a fiery death as the craft plunged through the atmosphere.
Then Andrei, 12, asked: What are these dark disks made of?
Again, like countless dads before him, Hardy answered confidently — even though he didn’t have a clue.
“Steel,” he said.
(The shield is actually made from a plastic-fiberglass composite, said Michael Neufeld, chairman of the museum’s space history division. The disks are plugs left over from post-flight analysis.)
If it didn’t occur to Hardy to say, “I don’t know,” he’s not alone. The phenomenon of the “know-it-all dad” is a familiar one to the docents, curators and keepers of America’s museums and zoos.
“Just about every time I’m on the floor, I hear a father say something incorrect to his kids,” said Bobbe Dyke, who has been a docent and tour guide at Air and Space for 31 years. “You can’t butt in and correct them in front of the kids. You just have to cringe.”
Read the full article here.
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Stumble It!
June 16th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
We always here the media complaining that men are not important in their children’s lives, and don’t do much with them nor are involved much.
Then when fathers do try they constantly talked about as to how bad they do things with their children.
It’s a constant negative attack on fathers and men. You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
June 16th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Hey, if you are dumb enough to become a father in a country like the USA in 2007, with the feminists, media, government, entertainment industry, courts, lawyers, and women all aligned to treat you like human garbage just for being a male parent, even on Father’s Day, you must be a total moron to become a father.
June 16th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
the dummer men are made to look, the smarter women are made to appear. just a coincidence of course. nothing to get worked up about. just move along now.
June 16th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
can one imagine anyone anywhere saying anything remotely negative about women a few days before mothers day? the most outrageous aspect is the total and i mean TOTAL silence from women. hell, they could care less.
makes me sick. of course, if you bring this to the attention of a women, they will surley say something like “it may be excessive”. that will be enough to satisfy most men who don’t want to live/eat/sleep alone.
just shoot me!
June 16th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Despite having donated my sperm and 27 years of marriage to make and raise two rather incredible female young persons, I generally agree with DcFather above.
Ah, to be young AND wise again!
The OPUS cartoon Glenn cites is a truly vile bit of misandry masquearading as a pro-dad comment. It is quite the opposite, given the right graphic panel’s feminist screed about fathers being deadbeats, alcoholics, and irresponsible.
And, after you’ve enjoyed these preliminary degradations of Father’s Day, be sure to check out msnbc.com’s splash page piece about what a loser in retail sales Father’s Day is for retailers.
Funny that for every $2.98 Hallmark card a dad might get from his wife, kids, or girlfriend, he has already paid for his own token “gift…”
By being a wage-slave for the people who are celebrated on Mother’s Day?
June 16th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
The marketing of degradation of men is a sight to behold. The public buys most it just like they most everything else marketed by the mass media. Kill you damn TV and stop listening to the old media. Dividing the country is what they do best and, sadly, they are winning the war against family and have successfully divided men from women.
June 16th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
S Baker … “The marketing of degradation of men …”
That’s a theory worthy of some thought and future commentary.
…” Dividing the country is what they do best…”
Before I can agree or disagree, you will need to define WHO you mean by THEY?
I’m always suspicious of THEY and THEM.
But, I’m suspicious on a delightful sunny day.
Still ‘n all — DEFINE your terms, please.
Then, discussion can occur.
June 16th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
THEY– meaning the Old Media, ABC, NBC, CBS, TV sitcoms, Hollywood, Progressive Liberals, NYTimes, et al. I am always suspicious of those who are so blind on a sunny day in which I have sweat a gallon cutting up a tree and hauling a few bales of hay.
June 16th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
A mother at a museum would know exactly what to do. Ask a man. Damn, these women beat us every time!
June 17th, 2007 at 12:15 am
S Baker — I had a feeling you would invoke the dirty “L”-word.
Yep, it’s surely a liberal conspiracy that is destroying American fathers.
THEY (sic) is now estimated that 2% of America’s extremely wealthy elite class controls 98% of America’s wealth.
Funny that this oligarchy is not populated by nasty Liberals. (Oh, you might want to Google who owns the mass media… not a liberal to be found!)
Kudos for your honest work and sweating. (My aged dad is a retired veterinarian and I’ve thrown my fair share of hay and jumped a few fences to avoid being killed by livestock with bad attitudes…)
I’ve got to go throw some hot steel on post-Father’s Day Monday at 5 am.
Very dangerous and politically unrewarding work given my socialistic sensibilities.
June 17th, 2007 at 8:42 am
D2G–so are you suggesting conservatives are destroying fathers?? I guess I am really not concerned who has more than I do. I got past this when I was a teenager. I had the old-fashioned attitude that envy was not a virtue.
You have unusual ideas for the son of a veterinarian. I know hundreds of veterinarians and most gravitate toward the conservative side. I think they are a bit too educated to be liberals.
June 17th, 2007 at 9:14 am
DW2G….do a “millionaire count” in the House or Senate…by party….
Check the charitable contributions by party
Don’t call Rupert Murdock a conservative
Don’t look at GE as a conservative company….the culture in all huge companies, even those wearing IBM blue and acting stuffy, all creating dependent and infantile men.
Label them as you choose…they are liberal. Much like many men haven’t a clue they are fiminised, most middle managers dont know they are helpless.
Yes it is liberals leading us down the path of femin ist destruction. I cannot even imagine what locutions one’s mind must go through to arrive at a different conclusion.
June 17th, 2007 at 9:31 am
The Fortune 500 is comprised of some of the most socialistic organizations in the history of the world. They retain their advantage against smaller and vastly more efficient competition, not by economies of scale, which are overwhelmed by the need for multiple and complex layers of bureaucracy just to keep track of it all, but rather by the hundreds of millions those companies spend lobbying government to ensure that the onerous regulations they publicly oppose are in fact enacted and enforced. They know that small companies can’t compete if they must bear a huge regulatory burden, for which economies of scale have a true payoff. They’ve taken their lessons right out of the National Socialist handbook, yet present themselves as somehow “conservative”.
June 17th, 2007 at 9:57 am
The Post article is clearly for no reason other than father/man-bashing. We know this because their ‘facts’ are purely anecdotal. Is there a study that shows that most men or some significant percentage of men act this way? If so the article didn’t cite it. So why take the occasion of Father’s Day to denigrate fathers? The MSM have an anti-father, anti-male agenda. Why? Ya’ got me.
June 18th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Feminist marketing 101 – 1) mock or dishonor men; 2) honor women; and, 3) support divorce, abortion, day care, gays, high credit card debt, recreational shopping, and other questionable decisions that suit women.
June 18th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Answer to question: Where’s Daddy?
A visitation order awards time (usually four days a month) for the father to raise his children. However, it is also an order, on the days he is not awarded, for the father to stay away from the kids.
The media and family courts do not report how trouble is delivered to fathers for reaching out to children on his unassigned days, the other 27 days of the month.
Academics do not research on the affects of family court’s visitation orders on a father and his children.
With divorce common, a reasonable person ought to expect a national discussion.