Lifetime TV announced the launch of its new, father-bashing reality show Deadbeat Dads last week. To email and fax a letter to Lifetime Executives protesting this show, click here.
“Neither accurate nor fair.”
–Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker, Washington Post Writers Group, on Deadbeat Dads
According to The Hollywood Reporter, “Deadbeat Dads, originally developed at Fox, follows National Child Support founder Jim Durham as he tracks down and confronts dads who don’t pay child support.’ According to Reuters, Durham “functions as a sort of ‘Dog the Bounty Hunter’ for tracking deadbeats…It’s ambush reality TV.” Durham will target fathers who are behind on their child support by “making their lives miserable — foreclosing on their house, repossessing their car. He will squeeze them.”
“Unfair to men.”–Syndicated advice columnist Amy Alkon, on Deadbeat Dads
Last April, Fathers & Families led a highly-publicized campaign against the show (originally called “Bad Dads’) and got Fox to drop it. Now Lifetime TV, which reaches nearly 100 million households, has picked up Deadbeat Dads, which unfairly depicts divorced fathers as uncaring and selfish. Research clearly shows that most divorced dads pay their child support and remain a part of their children’s lives, often under difficult circumstances. In fact, federal government data shows that the overwhelming majority of “deadbeat dads” earn poverty level wages–only 4% earn even $40,000 a year.
“Disturbing…they are heaping abuse on men in the name of ‘justice'”–TV Host/Psychologist Helen Smith, on Deadbeat Dads
To email and fax a letter to Lifetime Executives protesting this show, click here. Also, please call Lifetime TV’s main switchboard at 310 556-7500.
Deadbeat Dads kicks fathers while they”re down. Media reports show the majority of those losing their jobs in this recession are men, and child support orders are notoriously difficult to modify downward. As the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and other papers have documented, these hard luck dads sometimes end up in jail.
To email and fax a letter to Lifetime Executives protesting this show, click here. Also, please call Lifetime TV’s main switchboard at 310 556-7500.
The worst part about Deadbeat Dads is the way it publicly humiliates children in single parent families by depicting their fathers as not loving or caring for them. How is a child to feel when he or she sees their dad being vilified on TV because he allegedly doesn’t love or provide for them? How is the child to feel when he or she is reminded of this by friends or teased about it on the schoolyard?
Yes, reality shows do sometimes intrude on people’s privacy, but rarely do they cast aspersions on something as intimate and emotional as a parent’s love for their children. Also, most reality show participants are volunteers. These children did not volunteer to be humiliated on national television.
To email and fax a letter to Lifetime Executives protesting this show, click here. Also, please call Lifetime TV’s main switchboard at 310 556-7500.
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Together with you in the struggle,
Glenn Sacks, MA
Executive Director, Fathers & Families
Ned Holstein, M.D., M.S.
Founder, Chairman of the Board, Fathers & Families