I is for Invisible
By Neil Tift
For my daughter Hannah’s second Christmas, my wife and I ordered a tape of children’s music that had her name woven into each of the six songs. She was excited when she opened her gift and immediately wanted to listen to her new tape.
The first tune was the Alphabet Song, sung by a woman with a beautiful rich voice. She started with “A is for apple, B is for baby” and went on to “H is for Hannah” and so on. But, as I listened, I found the song to be annoyingly incomplete. The artist sang “G is for Grandma” and went on to “M is for Mommy”. That was appealing. But she also sang “D is for ducky”, “F is for froggie”, on to “P is for puppy”.
I felt compelled to rewind the tape to listen again, hoping that I had just failed to hear some very important words. But she sang it singing the same words that I heard the first time.
There was no “D is for daddy”, no “F is for father” nor any “P is for poppa”.
And I wondered out loud. Why is there no male presence included in any of the 26 letters of my daughter’s alphabet? Why do American publishers think it should be the norm to exclude any male representation in the family portrait? Why are fathers consistently invisible in the world of our children?
What has happened in the US that the children’s entertainment industry has decided that fathers, that men, are no longer important to include in our world view.
This could be a reflection of our government assistance programs that provide billions of federal dollars to fund Maternal and Child Health, Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies, and Women’s Infants and Children (WIC) Programs. These are obviously important resources formothers and children who truly benefit from their services. We must continue funding them to the fullest extent to help our wives, sisters, mothers and daughters. But what about the fathers? Where are they in our service delivery system?
Or is this merely a reflection of the media’s portrayal of contemporary fathers as the doofus dad we see in so many TV shows, movies and commercials?
I definitely don’t want my daughter growing up in a world where fathers are invisible. No one should.
Neil Tift
Father Involvement Program Director
Child Crisis Center
817 North Country Club Drive
Mesa Az 85203
480.834.9424, Ext 4240