Some Father-Positive Ads: The Strong Hand a Father Provides

Background: Since lately we’ve been talking a lot about anti-male advertising during and after our Campaign Against Anti-Male Advertising, I was recently reminded of a positive series of ads by the National Fatherhood Initiative. The NFI does good work on promoting the importance of fathers and fatherhood, but errs in ignoring the role that family courts and mothers play in creating fatherlessness, instead placing all blame for fatherlessness on men.

Some of you may recall that a few years ago I criticized a father-bashing ad campaign conducted by the NFI in my column National Fatherhood Initiative’s Ad Campaign Insults African-American Fathers (Pasadena Star-News & others, 6/14/03). To hear NFI president Roland Warren defend the campaign on His Side with Glenn Sacks, click here.

I stand by my criticisms of the NFI. However, I also believe in giving credit where credit is due. Presumably paying no attention to me, the NFI came out with some ads which portrayed fathers–particularly African-American fathers–very positively.

In one of the NFI’s radio PSAs–”Daddy Issues”–a group of teenagers complain about their dads–their dads enforce discipline, have standards, and watch what their kids are doing. The ad promotes the underappreciated qualities of the traditional dad.

In the ad a boy complains:

“He would come home after a hard day and just start in on me. You know, like, ‘Hey, how was your day, how was school, what you got going on.’ I mean it gave me the chills.”

A girl criticizes her fathers, saying:

“The time I got this wicked cool scorpion tattoo on my shoulder, not even the whole arm, just the shoulder, and he grounded me for two weeks. Two weeks!”

After several such vignettes, Actor Tom Selleck closes, saying “Embarrass them. Horrify them. Freak them out. Don’t worry, they’ll appreciate it … eventually.”

To listen, click here.

In a column a couple years ago I explained:

“It is certainly true that the old, tough dad had his drawbacks, just as all parents–including mothers–do. The best parent is one who mixes affection and discipline, who loves and is lovable but at the same time is respected and, when necessary, feared. But not all parents can do all these things, and while we might have wished that the old dad were more sensitive, he was very important, and his virtues much underappreciated.

“As a former high school teacher I can assure you that what we need is more, not less, of the old dad–particularly in the inner cities. The dad who’s not afraid to be the bad guy. The dad who’s not afraid to take strong measures to help and protect his children. The dad who tells his son ‘if you shoplift you’d better hope the police get you before I do.’ A father like my friend’s dad, a South Central Los Angeles cop who kept a tight curfew and a belt on the wall and who, before he died at an early age, claimed as his greatest achievement the fact that all four of his daughters got through college without having a baby.”

I also enjoyed the NFI TV PSA “Dance.” It reminds me of the way my daughter and I sometimes dance together, though the father in the ad is far more graceful and limber than I. To watch, click here.

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