I was perusing through the latest TV preview of Entertainment Weekly over the weekend and saw this advertisment fro NBC’s newest sitcom: Guys With Kids

When I started this blog I was thrilled when Parenthood (also NBC) featured a Stay-at-home dad because he encompassed what I thought a STAD should be. Manly yet gentle and a vital and dependable member of the household. He had a trade, was a great father and took care of business and had the confidence to be a STAD.

NBC (I’m sensing a pattern here) also had a STAD in their sitcom last year with Up All Night. I was going to write a post about it, especially since it featured funnyman Will Arnett. My wife and I gave up on the show after 4 episodes due to lack of interest. The situational comedy of Arnett’s STAD was completely a misfire with only a small amount of time devoted to laughs to his somewhat ineptitude to his STAD role. I didn’t like the rest of the show so I gave up. I just read that the second season flip-flops the Stay-at-home role back to the wife and Arnett goes back to work so it’s a moot point now anyway.

So now I see this ad for Guys with Kids and I realized that the STAD character is the new “gay” character. What I mean by that is starting in the 90s, slowly but surely the tolerance towards gays was better and more and more gay TV characters were being introduced. My So-Called World, Will & Grace, ER and Sex & the City featured openly and proud gay and lesbian characters and now you can’t change the channel and not find a show featuring a LGBT character. Nothing wrong with that at all. But I find most of these LGBT characters are still written as the flamboyant gay or the “butchy” lesbian sometimes. Old stereotypes that aren’t always necessarily true.

Well anyway, I’m now seeing more and more STAD’s in TV shows, either being portrayed as seriously dramatic like Joel Graham from Parenthood or lovable goofballs like Will Arnett’s. Again nothing wrong with that but this new show with the Baby Björn tough-guy look (ripping off Zach Galifianakis’ gag in The Hangover) and I’m seeing a changing perception, tolerance and openness to “our group” of males. Its certainly a new game and world for us staying at home, taking care of the house and not just the yards as well as baby/toddler wrangling. Everyday I see the humor and joy as well as the misery and suffering of staying home, not making much or no money, going food shopping and cleaning up mess after mess these darned kids make. I’m glad the STAD is getting more exposure in TV and films. It used to be a joke-only since Michael Keaton fed the baby chili in Mr. Mom to now dudes confidently strolling their kids with other dudes (see the trailer for the What to Expect When You’re Expecting movie that premiered earlier this year) and walking around metro-sexually with Baby Björns.

I can dig it.