What it takes to be a Father

The PSA I chose to respond to is Fatherhood Involvement — Kid Again.

Although a short clip, 31 seconds to be exact, it speaks plenty and is able to strongly push a message across. The exact message the clip gives, although clear, can’t be fully determined until the latter end of the video.

The video starts out with a middle-aged looking man enjoying himself on a spring-rider presumably at a park. It quickly cuts to a woman on the other side of the now-confirmed park who pulls her baby-carriage in closer, as if she is uneasy with the man’s actions. The next scene is a man who smears his face into the glass of a corner-store, repeatedly making ridiculous faces and looking downwards across the corner. Then we see another man who observes this and exchanges a puzzled and judgmental glance. Finally we see a third middle-aged looking man in a shirt, tie, and khakis bouncing on something which is cut-out of sight by a fence.

We’ll refer to these men as man one, man two, and man three respectively. After the third scene cuts, it changes to a familiar setting, but with a girl laughing while looking through a glass. It then switches cameras to show man two making faces at the girl to entertain her. Subsequently, it cuts to man three, now we see he is jumping on a trampoline with a little boy. Lastly, the scene returns to the first setting with another young boy also enjoying himself on a spring rider right across from man one.

At this point, the message may still be unclear to some. However, shortly after the suspense is quenched, the scenes are played more in sequence as text appears on the screen. Text that says “fatherhood.gov”, and “877-4DAD411”. From this we can now conclude that each of the men were the fathers of the children in their respective scenes. The message, now even more clear, is a message geared towards fathers. It shows fathers acting childish with their children. Perhaps the PSA’s message is for fathers to remember to be kids again to be fully involved with their children. This presumption can be proved by reverting to the beginning of the video with audio. Towards the middle of the clip a voice comes in and says: “Sometimes all it takes to be a dad, is remembering how to be a kid again. Take time to be a dad today”.