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I’ve never cared much for family sitcoms.
Sure, I liked “Friends” well enough back when it was on, but over the last decade or so, trying to watch sitcoms about families left me with a feeling of disgust. In almost every single one, the family is portrayed like this:
The mom is really pretty, thin and always put together.
Of the kids, usually a boy and a girl, the girl is usually popular and ditzy while the boy is mischievous and nerdy.
Then there is the dad, the man of the family. He is usually much older than the wife, somewhat goofy, emasculated and made the fool by his much smarter and more beautiful wife. The jobs he has are rarely what one would consider ‘white collar” and many work in a trade. He was almost always the butt of the joke throughout the 30 minutes, the lovable-but-dopey dad.
The reason this bothers me so much is that for me, that doesn’t even come close to my experience with the men in my life.
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My Dad and his dad were never what one would call dopey or goofy. They were good family men that did whatever they needed to do to provide for the family.
My grandfather was an over the road truck driver for years and spent a lot of time away from home while my grandmother raised my dad and his 3 siblings. My grandmother told me many nights she worried if he would make it home. Thankfully, he was able to retire from truck driving and started driving a local tour bus until he retired.
My Dad, being the oldest boy, often had a lot of responsibility on his shoulders to be “the man of the house” while my grandfather was on the road. So when my dad had his own family, he was responsible and wanted nothing more than to provide for and take care of us.
When my Dad lost his job as an insurance broker when I was very young, he took a job in construction, so there would be food on the table. When he started out, he didn’t know much and was often given menial clean up jobs while he watched and learned from the other guys.
Who would have thought that it was this job that made me, his daughter, sick 30 years later. Unfortunately, my Dad, like thousands and thousands of other men working in the trades or in the armed forces, worked many times in unsafe conditions. This was before regulations and OSHA made the workplace somewhat safer. When he started with the construction company, my Dad did drywall. He started by being the clean-up guy, sanding the drywall compound and sweeping it up at the end of the day. He often did demolition work, tearing apart walls, ceilings and tile floors for remodels.
What my Dad didn’t know then was that many of these places were built with materials that contained asbestos. He would come home from work covered in a whitish grey dust. His beard was even dusty, and he often wore a lightweight jacket that was caked with this same dust. This jacket was one I wore often to do my own chores around the house, and being exposed to asbestos on this jacket is what led to my diagnosis of mesothelioma cancer 30 years later.
I’m not the only one. Countless other men, women, and the children of these tradesmen were exposed to the deadly dust. So often throughout history, men are the ones who do the jobs that not only endanger themselves, but their family members as well. Decades ago, before OSHA, before the EPA, work conditions were horrific and many men paid the ultimate price. So many male-dominated trades put them in the line of danger when all they were trying to do was the same thing my own husband, father and grandfather did: provide for the family, put food on the table and a roof over our heads. It is only in the last few decades that women have come to play an important part in the family income, but for many, the man is still the primary source of income.
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Today there are regulations in place to help cut down on work-related accidents and injuries. Although accidents do still happen, there is no question that regulations save lives. When the current administration came in, I started to have serious concerns about workplace safety. The President’s budget calls for a 31% cut to the EPA, the very agency that regulates chemicals, industry air and water. He wants to cut back on regulations, saying for every new regulation introduced, two had to go.
I am all for cutting back on waste or unnecessary regulations, but not at the cost of safety, or worse, someone’s life. People often ask how my Dad is, since I had been diagnosed with mesothelioma as a result of asbestos exposure. I’m sorry to say he passed away in 2014, the day after his 71st birthday, from clear cell renal carcinoma. I am convinced his cancer was the result of all of those years working in construction, and possibly from asbestos exposure.
We will never know for sure.
It’s been hard not having my Dad around, and we are slowly figuring out life without his laughter and his amazing cooking skills.
My Dad wasn’t the goofy dad you see on TV sitcoms. He was one of those men who never met a stranger he didn’t like. He made friends everywhere he went, and losing him affected so many people.
But my story is not unique. There are thousands of dads who went to work every day, taking the dangerous jobs, almost as if the men themselves are disposable.
I’m afraid if the Trump Administration has their way, that WILL be the case.
Protections need to stay in place. The EPA needs to be here to protect all of us, and so many little girls like my daughter need their daddy around. Maybe soon, a sitcom on TV will portray a more realistic family, one where the dad is respected and not the butt of the joke.
I for one would welcome the change.
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Photo Credit: Flickr Creative Commons/Saad Ahktar
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You had me until I realized this was an anti-Trump commercial. You nonetheless touched on some good points about how society view men.
I agree with just about everything you have said, except one. Changes that the President has proposed do not involve endangering people at work. My son is an OSHA inspector and He sees contractors every day endangering the lives of workers, Usually immigrants. They are a great danger.
Dad became the butt end of the joke when the women’s movement in the 1960’s made showing women in unfavorable light socially and politically dangerous. If you were a movie or television executive, you knew it was going to be a bad day when you showed up for work and the press was there covering the hundreds of pickets organized by the National Organization of Women who were marching in front of the studio offices. Men were cast in the role of the buffoon or the comic foil to fill the gap. We’ve been treating men as expendable assets while… Read more »
Excellent response, Keith. And right on spot. Men have been throw aways since about the 1300s. Before that, everyone was a throwaway, but at least equal throwaway. Except for the elite. Which is why they praised health advancements eventually for all, because then they had strong and healthy men to be thrown away, fighting for them. It was in their best interest to embrace that. And that idea of manliness has carried through to day. When it’s actually not those we really need for the most part. Robots and drones, controlled by nerdy men and women will be the basic… Read more »