Where’s my daddy?!

We’ve been reading to our kids every night before bed, ever since Jack was very young. It didn’t take me long to identify a trend amongst children’s books – one very alienting for dads like me. Many of them feature mothers in nurturing roles with their kids, with no dads in sight.

I know this isn’t true in all cases, and children’s literature is beginning to reflect the evolving role of fathers in their kids’ lives. But the absent dad is still a pronounced feature in many books for kids. And the dads that are there are often bumbling Homer Simpson-like figures, like the dad in the Berenstain Bears series.

Take these books, for example:

• Owl Babies, by Martin Waddell, is about three little owls who grow frightened when they wake up one night and their mother has left the nest. They bide their time talking about where their mom might have gone, and are greatly relieved when she eventually returns.
• Are You My Mother?, by P.D. Eastman, is about a bird who hatches when his mother is out in search of food. He leaps from the nest to the ground, and heads off in search of … his mother. It’s a cute story; on his journey he mistakes many creatures and and things (from a cat to a large mechanical excavator) for his mom.

I love these stories, but it does bother me that dad is left out of the picture. Lately I’ve taken to inserting the father in place of the mother. For instance:

“One night they woke up and their Owl Father was GONE.
“Where’s Daddy” asked Sarah.
“Oh my goodness! said Percy.
“I want my daddy!” said Bill.

In the beginning, four-year-old Jack would correct me. “It’s MOMMY dad!” he would tell me.

Eventually he got used to the substitutions, though I did wonder if I was being over-sensitive. Lately, I’ve gone back to reading it the right way most of the time.

A couple of days ago, I asked Ella if she wanted to read Owl Babies. “You know, the story about the baby owls waiting for their mommy to come home,” I said to her.

“No, it’s DADDY!” she told me.

So we read the story about the owls waiting for their daddy.

Sometimes there’s just no substitute for dad.