Americans watch a lot of television. Their households consume an average of two to eight hours a day, depending on how it’s measured. It makes sense, then, that television is an important force for how we understand and treat ourselves and others. That includes how we come to understand parenting and caregiving, including caring for children, aging parents, people with disabilities, and more. In recent decades, we’ve seen fathers like Homer Simpson (The Simpsons, Fox) and Phil Dunphy (Modern Family, ABC) delightfully stumble and surprisingly shine in their caregiving roles, and we’ve watched Uncle Phil (Fresh Prince, NBC) step up to care for his nephew, and Danny Tanner (Full House, ABC) fill his role as a single dad. And for many, Mister Rogers (Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, PBS) cared for viewers directly, addressing them in their living rooms as they watched.
But what is the current state of caregiving on television? In particular, how are men being shown as caregivers? How much do current shows validate and reinforce rigid models of male caregiving linked to unhealthy masculinity, or how do shows take the opposite tack and afford real-world men a roadmap toward “new fatherhood,” more balanced relationships with their partners, and positive relationships with their dependents? These portrayals are important for understanding men’s actual caregiving. They likely also shape debates around public policies that affect those who are in care of others.
To answer these questions, we analyzed 225 popular scripted broadcast and streaming television shows from 2013 to 2020. From the nearly one thousand characters we identified as caregivers, one overall finding stuck out: While men are depicted doing hands-on caregiving at higher rates than in the past, they are too often shown as abusive, incompetent, and/or emotionally distant. These persistent tropes point to the need for more stories that show men as imperfect but connected, emotionally responsive, invested, and equitable caregivers. Given that television has the power to shape our culture, we hope that this report will inspire new and reimagined stories about what caregiving can look like for the next generation.