NEW CAMPAIGN: Thousands Protest Lifetime TV’s New Reality Show ‘Deadbeat Dads’!
April 26th, 2009 by Glenn Sacks, MA for Fathers & Families
Lifetime TV announced the launch of its new, father-bashing reality show Deadbeat Dads last week.
“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.
