A few weeks ago, a comedy film came out with a tired and unfunny premise: In \u201cThe Breadwinner,\u201d a dad stays home to care for his three children while their mom goes to work. Hilarity ensues, right? In 2026, it shouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
We are asked to laugh at a man who doesn\u2019t know the way to his own kids\u2019 schools. A dad this absent isn\u2019t goofy; he\u2019s a stranger. In the family\u2019s kitchen, a dry-erase board lists the family\u2019s daily activities, prompting the dad character to ask, \u201cHow long is the list?\u201d \u2014 as if he had just noticed the board for the first time. It didn\u2019t make me laugh. It bothered me. Popular media still tells men that showing up at home is optional.<\/p>\n
My father, whom I called Papajee, worked a government job in Delhi while my mom took care of three boys full time. In the evenings and on weekends, Papajee would sit on the floor in front of the TV and peel onions, cut cauliflower or pick apart spinach leaves. He walked me to the bus stop every morning for school \u2014 but only after polishing my shoes and ironing my clothes. He showed up. Daily. I felt his presence. Daily.<\/p>\n
We need to stop framing a man\u2019s presence in the home as a sacrifice or a comedic trope. My disappointment and frustration with this \u201cclueless male\u201d trope isn\u2019t just about the media representation. It\u2019s personal. When I first moved to the U.S. for work, I called my mother on Skype to show her a chicken curry I had made from scratch. Instead of praising this triumph, my mother cried. She was unhappy that her son had to cook for himself. It\u2019s not just an American thing: There\u2019s a persistent global myth that men should remain functionally helpless at home.<\/p>\n
When my parents later came to visit me, I had an argument with my mom because I wouldn\u2019t let her wash the dishes after dinner. I knew that she wanted to wash the dishes not because she was a grateful guest and not because she wanted to fairly divide the duties of cooking and cleaning, but because she is a woman and I am a man. Had I been her daughter instead of her son, I suspect she would have let me play host(ess) and wash the dishes without comment. I refused to follow that gendered script in my own home.<\/p>\n
In many cultures, male domestic helplessness has been treated, weirdly, as a sign of masculinity. Shouldn\u2019t general competence be the mark of adulthood, regardless of gender? It\u2019s not manly to not know where the fresh towels are; it\u2019s lazy and embarrassing.<\/p>\n
Sure, sometimes I miss my turn to clean the kitty litter or forget to take the garbage out before the trash pickup. But I won\u2019t let it become a habit. That would unfairly foist the responsibilities onto my girlfriend.<\/p>\n
A few decades ago, showing the clueless male on screen perpetuated an imbalance that existed in most homes. To show the clueless male today is even worse, impressing a rejected old unjust model on generations that ought to be moving past it. This disrespects the legacy of men like my father who made that progress \u2014 men who did everything they could without making a fuss about it.<\/p>\n
We can and should reframe how our culture\u2019s stories portray men in 2026. Normalizing the domestic man isn\u2019t just a gift for the women in the family; it\u2019s the only way for men to be present for their own lives. It has long been observed that some men are, out of laziness, intentionally or subconsciously pretending to be clueless \u2014 what\u2019s known as weaponized incompetence. Men should not consider that to be an option. Our conditioning must change.<\/p>\n
I may have lost Papajee in 2021, but I\u2019ll never lose his invaluable lessons on manhood. He made it look effortless. And really, guys: It\u2019s not that hard.<\/p>\n
Mayur Chauhan is an actor, writer and creativity coach in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
Insights <\/p>\n
L.A. Times Insights<\/a> delivers AI-generated analysis on Voices content to offer all points of view. Insights does not appear on any news articles. <\/p>\n Perspectives <\/p>\n The following AI-generated content is powered by Perplexity. The Los Angeles Times editorial staff does not create or edit the content.<\/p>\n Ideas expressed in the piece<\/p>\n The article argues that the \u201chapless dad\u201d character \u2014 the father who cannot find the kids\u2019 school, has never noticed the family calendar and bungles basic tasks \u2014 is no longer funny in 2026 but instead signals a kind of emotional absence and irresponsibility that should not be normalized.<\/p>\n It contends that these portrayals tell men, implicitly, that participation in family life is optional, because fathers are framed as visiting guests or comic relief rather than as competent, central caregivers.<\/p>\n The piece contrasts this trope with the author\u2019s own father, who worked full time yet consistently did hands-on domestic tasks \u2014 from ironing school uniforms to prepping vegetables and walking a child to the bus stop \u2014 to illustrate that involved parenting by men is neither rare nor heroic, just ordinary adulthood.<\/p>\n It further argues that media and family expectations often treat even basic male domestic competence as a special \u201csacrifice\u201d or bonus, whereas the same behaviors are considered routine and unremarkable for women.<\/p>\n The article situates the issue in a global context, describing how some parents still react with distress when sons cook or clean for themselves, revealing a lingering belief that men should remain functionally helpless at home while women shoulder invisible labor.<\/p>\n It criticizes the way many cultures have coded domestic incompetence as a marker of masculinity, insisting that the true marker of adulthood, for any gender, is general competence \u2014 knowing where the towels are, taking out the trash, managing the family schedule and sharing routine chores.<\/p>\n The piece acknowledges that everyone occasionally forgets tasks, but stresses that repeatedly \u201cforgetting\u201d household work often becomes a pattern that shifts the burden onto women partners, which the article frames as unfair and avoidable.<\/p>\n It connects the \u201cclueless male\u201d character to the concept of \u201cweaponized incompetence,\u201d in which some men play up their ineptitude so that others will take over undesirable tasks, and urges men not to treat that as an acceptable strategy.<\/p>\n The column argues that continuing to recycle this trope now is worse than it was decades ago: it imposes an \u201cold unjust model\u201d onto new generations at a time when many real fathers are more engaged and want their efforts reflected, echoing modern parenting advocates who call the \u201chapless dad\u201d a relic of an era when men earned the money and women did all the caregiving.[1]<\/a>[2]<\/a><\/p>\n It calls for reframing cultural stories so that a \u201cdomestic man\u201d is normalized, not idealized or mocked, noting that this change benefits women by reducing unpaid labor and benefits men by allowing them to be fully present in their own family lives.<\/p>\n The article closes by treating competent fatherhood as a learned, repeatable behavior \u2014 modeled by men like the author\u2019s father \u2014 and suggests that building this new norm is less difficult than many men claim, provided they reject the script of helplessness.<\/p>\n Different views on the topic<\/p>\n Some media and humor scholars maintain that exaggerated depictions of inept parents, including fathers, are a longstanding comedic device that functions as satire or social commentary, not as an instruction manual for behavior; in this view, flawed characters can highlight and critique real domestic imbalances rather than endorse them.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n From a storytelling perspective, critics of overhauling such characters entirely argue that familiar archetypes and tropes help writers quickly establish roles and conflicts an audience recognizes, allowing comedy or commentary to land faster; academic work on literary tropes emphasizes how recurring character types are routinely used to organize narrative and signal expectations to readers.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n Certain commentators suggest that while \u201cuseless dad\u201d stereotypes can be lazy or unfair, many families do still experience uneven domestic labor, and these portrayals sometimes resonate because they mirror frustrations that partners feel about disengaged spouses; in this reading, the humor gives voice to real grievances rather than simply excusing male behavior.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n Some parents and viewers argue that comic depictions of fathers learning to cope \u2014 fumbling through school runs, mishandling laundry, burning dinner \u2014 can also normalize the idea that men are in the process of becoming more involved, and that missteps are part of that transition; they worry that if all incompetent portrayals are rejected, stories may swing toward an equally unrealistic demand for flawless fatherhood.<\/p>\n Advertising and entertainment industry voices have, at times, defended humorous \u201cdad fail\u201d scenes by saying that light-hearted exaggeration creates relatable moments and that audiences distinguish between slapstick and real-life expectations, pointing to broader research on humor\u2019s role in relieving domestic and political tensions.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n Some fatherhood advocates contend that the main problem is not the existence of comedic fathers but the lack of variety: they call for a wider spectrum that includes competent, nurturing, and silly dads side by side, rather than eliminating bumbling characters altogether, arguing that a mix of representations better reflects the diversity of real families and avoids replacing one rigid ideal with another.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n