Until I was 10, I lived in an all-female household, and my earliest ideas about live-in fathers were gleaned from family sitcoms. I was a latchkey kid, too, so I watched more TV than the average child psychologist would recommend and thus absorbed a lot about which traits comprise the most compelling onscreen dads. I was picky; Carl Winslow (Reginald VelJohnson) of “Family Matters” was inauthentic, too grumpy and blustering or else too jolly. I preferred Will Smith’s Uncle Phil (James Avery) on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” Dr. Jason Seaver (Alan Thicke) of “Growing Pains” was stodgier and less likable than ex-hippie Steven Keaton (Michael Gross) on “Family Ties.” At first I didn’t know what magnetized me to some characters and repelled me from others, but with time, I came to realize it had everything to do with the quality and authenticity of their engagement with their kids.  By narrative necessity, television fathers have a fairly well-calibrated work-life balance. They may work long hours outside the home, but for the purposes of the show, they share a lot of screen time with their children. Usually, that time is spent dispensing pat, convenient life lessons or delivering a shoehorned punch line. Carl Winslow, for instance, might swing by the after-school hangout spot to find out how his son, Eddie, fared in a confrontation with a bully there. Dr. Huxtable (Bill Cosby) on “The Cosby Show” often worked right out of a home office in the basement, fielding a question from a kid who’d venture down there when he was on the clock, but only in order to deliver a laugh.  My favorite onscreen dads were the ones whose quality time with their kids didn’t seem like such blatant storytelling stretches. I always adored Dan Conner (John Goodman) on “Roseanne” because the writers rooted his time with his children in realism. For much of the show’s early run, Dan worked as a construction contractor, his income and time away from home contingent on the length of time during and between each gig. Since his was a marriage plagued with layoffs and low-wage contract work, he and Roseanne split in-home child care in whichever ways made sense each week. As such, his relationship with each of his children was stronger than it would’ve been for a white-collar worker who never had occasion to be home during the day or whose children were dissuaded from interrupting his work-from-home hours.  Dan also wasn’t as cheery as the average sitcom dad; he allowed himself anger in front of his children. He could shut himself away from them for days at a time, then reconcile over milkshakes or dishwashing. He didn’t smile in every scene. He was messy and encouraged housework procrastination, but he wasn’t incompetent, either. He knew how to contribute to a household’s domestic function. And though he was full of machismo and bluster, Dan worked hard to connect with both his tomboy daughter, Darlene (Sara Gilbert), and his super-femme eldest, Becky (Alicia Goranson). His kids filled him with consternation, especially the girls, but his commitment to them only deepened with each season.  Another TV dad whose work schedule afforded him a great deal of time to connect with his kids was Bernie Mac. The pilot of “The Bernie Mac Show” found the titular comedian assuming custody of his drug-addicted sister’s three children. Based on real life circumstances and the stand-up routines it inspired, the sitcom begins with Mac and his wife, Wanda (Kellita Smith), being at a loss as to how to parent two preteens and a toddler. Wanda worked traditional hours in upper management at a phone company. Mac worked nights at stand-up and, as his career blossomed, at various odd times of day for film and TV roles.  Throughout the show’s run, he remained the children’s primary caregiver, and his relationships with each of them saw their share of very realistic ups and downs. The writers allowed Mac the freedom to say things to the children that he didn’t mean, to grapple with the ethics of using their private moments as fodder for his routines, and to make himself vulnerable enough to earn back their trust when he lost it (and he lost it fairly often).  His oldest niece, Vanessa (Camille Winbush), was particularly sensitive to being mentioned in Mac’s acts, and in one episode, “Handle Your Business,” she took great exception to him joking about her mother’s addiction in a radio appearance. Much as it might have in real life, the situation resolved unexpectedly. Where the viewer might have expected him to vow never to joke about anything so sensitive to the kids again, Mac explained to Vanessa, “I said some things about your mother, and I know that it hurt you deeply. But what you got to understand, sweetheart, is that’s my sister, and I love her, too, and we just deal with our pain differently. And no matter what the outcome is, I love you guys, despite what I might say.”  My last favorite onscreen depiction of fatherhood also comes via a show about a comedian. Chris Rock’s dad, Julius (Terry Crews), on “Everybody Hates Chris” worked at least two jobs at all times. Because he wasn’t able to spend as much time as he might have liked with his children, he delivered most of his instructions for discipline and house-management to Chris, the oldest child. His advice often represented his working-class values, most prominent of which was self-sacrifice for the good of the family.  In the show’s first season, Julius explained to Chris that he wouldn’t be receiving a Christmas gift because money was tight and he could only afford to give fun items to the younger two children. Shortly thereafter, he urged Chris, whose post-school commute was at least an hour long, to also get an after-school job. At the show’s onset, Chris was 13 years old; it seemed a bit early to hurtle him into adulthood, but perhaps as a testament to Terry Crews’s acting (Crews himself is no stranger to self-sacrifice and managing a large household on a very tight budget), Julius never seemed like a cruel taskmaster. He also made time for Chris’s questions about girls, interracial relationships, friendship and money management. He was just as generous with his other children, even when it cost him much-needed between-job rest.  As I look back at them, these shows served as a powerful reminder that having it all is just as much of a struggle for fathers as for mothers. The truly heroic dads on television were the ones who didn’t take the easy out and consider their work done if they were providers. They wanted to be present, not just for the good of their children but also for the rewards that come with not just supporting your offspring but also really coming to know them.
The fathers who stand out most on television want to be present for their children, not just provide for them.