The world wants to see stories of dads who are motivated to be the best men they can be for their children right now so we should celebrate fatherhood until we break the internet
That’s the view of Doyin Richard who says dads are getting more attention than they’ve ever had in traditional media and social media right now. In an article for Ask Men, he cites the example of the single dad who enrolled on a beauty course to learn how to do his daughter’s hair and the recent spate of positive dad ads broadcast during this year’s American Super Bowl.
These are just the tip of the iceberg he could have added:
- The dad who chose to divorce his wife to take care of their baby with Downs Syndrome
- The Baby show’s great celebration of fatherhood
- The political fighting over who can offer the best paternity leave
The dad who broke the internet
Richards says it would be great if we could get to the point where dads can demonstrate their dad skills and it’s not be newsworthy—and he’s speaking as a dad who nearly broke the internet himself by being pictured styling his daughter’s hair. Here’s what he has to say on the matter:
“Even though it’s not unusual for me and millions of dads to care for our kids, the fact is we don’t see enough of it in the news. Like it or not, we know it’s unusual to see a story of a man going to school in effort to create amazing hairdos for his little girl. It touches us emotionally. It makes us smile. It makes us cry. It makes us want to see more. There’s a reason why stories of men drinking beer and watching football on Sunday afternoons don’t go viral.”
“As counterintuitive as it may seem,” says Richards. “The only way to normalize “good fatherhood” is to celebrate it when we see it in the media. In order to normalize good fatherhood, we need to celebrate the hell out of good fatherhood whenever we see it in the media.”
—Picture credit: flickr/pasukaru76
In the run up to launch of the film Down Dog on 13 February, insideMAN is running a series of articles about fatherhood and we’d love you to get involved. You can join the conversation on twitter by using the hashtag #MenBehavingDADly; leave a comment in the section below or email us with your thoughts and ideas for articles to insideMANeditor@gmail.com.
For more information about the film see www.downdogfilm.com