Television and Positive Male Role Models

As I have posted before, I have been getting really into vlogs.  I finally started watching some teacher vlogs.  They are great to watch while you are cooking or walking on a treadmill.  On one of the vlogs I watched, this teacher was talking about how kids are not getting good male role models in their lives and on television.  The vlog was from A Cozy Classroom.  She talked about how many of her students are growing up with a single-parent raising them and most times it’s a woman. 

As a male first grade teacher, this perked my interest.  She got a lot of slack from her comments.  However, I completely agree with most of what she said.  She went on to talk about how many single-parent families use the television as a babysitter.  She was not judging but just stating what she has noticed.  As these students are watching cartoons like, Fairly Odd Parents, the dad and the God father are complete morons.  They say and do dumb things.  However, thankfully there is a woman there to save them and have all the smarts.    

Not only have these types of male role models been seen in cartoons but also in commercials.  The men cannot do anything and a woman has to do the work because the men are too dumb.  It is so frustrating that kids are seeing this as the norm... men are dumb and women know it all. 

This touched me because I, too, work in a school were many of my students are being raised by a single mother and their father is not really in the picture.  Some are lucky and have an awesome grandpa or uncle who is providing that model for the kids.  However, that is not always the case.  So, the student is seeing these stereotypes of a father/husband and start to think that that’s how men should act.  We need to stop this kind of man shaming and stop the gender stereotypes.  Television needs to provide more positive male role models in children’s programming.