The poor bemoaned, berated, bedraggled American father. Most often thought of - when he is thought of at all these days - as a deadbeat dad or an absentee parent. Most often portrayed on TV sitcoms - when portrayed at all - as a hapless buffoon.
Of course, most fathers are none of the above but rather are loving, giving, caring, concerned human beings. And in the '90s they are becoming better fathers than ever before.Five or 10 years ago it was rare if ever that we would see a young man in a grocery store or shopping mall with a child in tow. Now young men routinely push baby carriages to school, to work and even to the playground.
Unfortunately, we still hold tight to some societal stigmas militating against involved fatherhood. But we are shedding them with alacrity. For example, almost a decade ago the husband of a friend decided to stay home for one year, full time, with his young daughter. He found the full-time moms in his neighborhood playground eschewed him and treated him like a pariah for several months before ushering him into their highly selective clique. And a cashier at the grocery store - seeing him there on repeat visits during the middle of the day - asked him if his wife had died.
Knowledge of these incidents turned me into an observer of adult playground relationships. And I am happy to report that mothers (unaccompanied by their male spouses) seem to be much more accepting of fathers (unaccompanied by their female spouses) than when my friend's husband suffered through his lack of acceptance.
Granted, the stay-at-home dad is still the exception rather than the rule. But the involved father is becoming the rule, not the exception. That's a seismic change in cultural attitudes.
This Father's Day American fathers are also much less prone to resorting to violence as a method of routine discipline. My father - who only spanked me once during my childhood - told me that his father kept a cat-o'-nine-tails in a corner of the living room. Its menacing presence was not strictly cosmetic. Whenever my father misbehaved - even so much as shot his father a nasty look - it was used. And every immigrant family at the time in New York, reports my father, kept and displayed a similar whip.
Today's fathers use more erudite methods of discipline. They can be spotted in the child psychology section of many a bookstore. Or they can be heard calling "timeout" in department stores when children become unruly. But they are rarely encountered using physical force to quell childhood tan-trums.
What, you say? If the media pay so much attention to stories of child abuse, how is it that fathers are less violent than they used to be? The reason is simple: Decades ago stories were rarely written about child abuse unless the child was murdered. It was not considered newsworthy if a child was merely beaten. Now parents can barely spank a child without social services paying them a call. This is progress.
The last frontier for the new American father is corporate bias. Employers still look askance at fathers who take paternity leave - or worse, sabbatical - to raise a child. Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend tells the story of an important public school official hired for a prominent state education job. When asked to submit a curriculum vitae for use in a press release, he noted he had taken a year off to raise his child so his wife could complete graduate studies. His press handlers suggested he excise that part because it might not look good in news reports.
Similarly, national statistics reflect that anti-fatherhood prepossession. Women are six times more likely than men to take family leave after the birth of a child.
Still, on this Father's Day there is much to celebrate. We've turned back centuries of outmoded attitudes in mere decades. We have freed fathers from cultural strictures that kept them aloof from their offspring. And we've shown them that baby's breath is among the sweetest of perfumes.