Motherland's portrayal of Kevin mocks stay-at-home dads says lecturer

BBC sitcom Motherland’s portrayal of wimpy character Kevin ‘makes mockery of stay-at-home dads’ says lecturer

• The character of Kevin on BBC sitcom Motherland has been singled out and criticised for making stay-at-home fathers seem ‘wimpy’ and ‘unmasculine’ 
• Dr Jasmine Kelland told a conference that men who take an active role in bringing up their children are still often seen as ‘new men’ and face ‘ridicule’  
• Statistics show 141,000 fathers did not have a job and stayed at home last year 

He’s the anxious, sensitive dad who’s the butt of many of the mums’ jokes in BBC sitcom Motherland.

But the character Kevin has been criticised for making stay-at-home fathers seem ‘wimpy and unmasculine’, a higher education conference was told.

Men who take an active role in bringing up their children are still often seen as ‘new men’ and face ‘ridicule’, Dr Jasmine Kelland said yesterday.

She added that Kevin is just the latest in a long line of television fathers singled out for mockery. Showing pictures of the stay-at-home dad, played by Paul Ready, as well as Daddy Pig from the cartoon Peppa Pig, she said fathers face ‘social mistreatment’.

Kevin (portrayed by Paul Ready) is the butt of the mum’s jokes in the BBC sitcom Motherland 

She said: ‘Kevin in Motherland is portrayed as wimpy and unmasculine, and is just never really part of the in-crowd and doesn’t fit in with the other mums. People might think these depictions are a bit of fun but they are the kind of stereotypes which fathers, and particularly stay-at-home dads, have to face all the time.’

Dr Kelland, giving a speech at the Plymouth Institute of Education Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Conference 2023, added: ‘Daddy Pig is portrayed as being never quite as good at anything as Mummy Pig, and that is an ongoing joke.

‘Daddy Pig is just a bit inadequate, and that is part of the ongoing stereotype that men are idle, lazy and poor at childcare – which is just downright discrimination.’

A decade ago, a Netmums survey of more than 2,000 people found almost half complained about children being surrounded by images of feckless fathers.

A ‘casual contempt’ was identified against fathers in cartoon’s such as The Simpsons and The Flintstones, and is said to continue into adult shows such as Outnumbered and Shameless. Dr Kelland said: ‘Homer is the classic feckless father and his neighbour, Ned Flanders, who looks after his children well, is seen as a joke. Highlighting this isn’t an example of a woke backlash but of identifying the micro-aggressions men face.

The character Kevin has been criticised for making stay-at-home fathers seem ‘wimpy and unmasculine’, a higher education conference was told

‘It might be helpful if parents watching Peppa Pig with their children make a point of saying that their real-life father would not make the mistakes Daddy Pig does, so children don’t start to believe the stereotypes.’ A rise in stay-at-home dads means a third more men are now raising their children instead of working following the pandemic.

The latest data from the Office for National Statistics shows between July and September last year around 141,000 fathers did not have a paid job and instead ‘looked after the family home’.

That is up from around 105,000 before the pandemic in the same period within 2019.

Dr Kelland, a lecturer in human resource studies at Plymouth Business School, researches the ‘fatherhood forfeit’ where men who look after their children struggle to get time off at work and are often viewed with suspicion or amusement.

She added: ‘There are more stay-at-home fathers than ever before, but there is still a lot of sexism that dads face.

‘It is assumed they are only looking after their children because mum is busy or can’t be there. That can have a negative impact on women too as it makes them the default primary parent.’

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