Tucker Carlson's Dishonest Film about the Fatherhood Crisis

Tucker on Fatherhood: Here’s What He Forgot​
TOM GOLDEN

Fatherhood matters.

That’s the message at the heart of Tucker Carlson’s documentary Fathers Wanted—and it’s a message worth hearing.

A man who gives his time, his energy, and his life to his children is doing something deeply meaningful. There’s no controversy there.

But as I watched the film, I kept noticing something else.

Not what it said.
But what it didn’t.

Because by the end, the story felt strangely incomplete—like watching a documentary about lung cancer that never once mentions smoking.

The framing begins immediately.

Within the first moments, we are told that young men are choosing pornography, video games, and drugs over marriage and family. The implication is clear: the problem is not just that fatherhood is declining, but that men are turning away from it—opting for comfort, distraction, and indulgence instead.

That may be true in some cases.

But starting the story this way does something important. It establishes, from the outset, that the primary driver of fatherlessness is male behavior.

Everything that follows is filtered through that lens.

The film goes on to frame fatherlessness largely as a cultural and moral failure.

Men, we’re told, are retreating. Avoiding responsibility. Choosing comfort over commitment. Losing faith. Losing purpose.

By the end, the message is unmistakable:
good men step up, bad men walk away.

And if a father abandons his children, Carlson makes it clear—he deserves contempt.

That’s a powerful claim.

But it rests on a narrow frame.

Because what the film barely examines—if at all—is the system in which modern fatherhood actually exists.

There is no serious discussion of:

family courts

custody outcomes

child support structures

no-fault divorce

or how fathers often lose daily access to their children

These are not minor details.

They are central to understanding what happens to fathers in the real world.

In many cases, fathers do not simply walk away.

They are separated—from their children, from their role, from their identity as fathers—by processes largely outside their control.

A man can go from being an everyday presence in his child’s life to being a visitor—or, in some cases, a paycheck.

And yet, culturally, the outcome is often interpreted the same way:

He left.

But that is not always what happened.

There is another layer here the film only partially acknowledges.

For decades, men have been broadly portrayed as:

oppressive

emotionally deficient

disposable

dangerous

​toxic

These ideas have been reinforced across media, education, and public discourse—under the influence of feminist frameworks that carry a deep skepticism and contempt toward men.

At the same time, we have seen something very different happen on the other side.

Single motherhood has increasingly been framed not as a difficult circumstance to be supported and stabilized, but as something to be celebrated—even idealized. Cultural messaging often elevates the strength and independence of mothers raising children alone, while saying very little about the cost of a father’s absence.

The contrast is striking.

Fathers are questioned.
Their role is diminished.
Their presence is treated as optional.

While single motherhood is often presented as sufficient—sometimes even preferable.

The result is a contradiction we rarely confront:

We tell men they are not needed.
We question their value.
We undermine their role.

And then we ask why they hesitate to step into it.

​When structural forces are ignored, a complex social problem ​can get reduced to a simple moral failure.

And when that happens, the burden of explanation—and blame—falls almost entirely on individuals.

In this case, on men.

Carlson is right about something important:

Fatherhood matters.

But if we want more fathers present in their children’s lives, we need to do more than praise the ideal.

We need to examine the systems that shape the reality.

Because until we do, we will keep asking the same question—

Why aren’t men stepping up?

—without fully understanding what they are stepping into.

MenAreGood Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.


Tom Golden
MenAreGood offers a sharp red-pilled contrast to the default negative cultural views of masculinity.

https://substack.com/redirect/acdfd2c8-e2fb-44b9-a9aa-9d9ef2434d14?j=eyJ1IjoiMXBvcTY0In0.bpX_Ri4UrVVzEcwn2tPJZmntoRqzSx0aLRc9mOX6Iw8

***

StephenBaskerville.com
Tucker Carlson's Dishonest Film about the Fatherhood Crisis
Are we back in the 1990s?

It is truly sad to see Tucker Carlson producing this kind of vapid drivel. Many people admire Carlson, and his influence is enormous. But this is beyond belief.

Carlson just released a new video: “Fathers Wanted”. It may be a tribute to his sense of shame that he refrains from narrating it himself, and he seems to make only two appearances. One (54:00) is to scold fathers for “abandoning” their children.

This is a throwback to the 1990s/2000s. For those too young to remember, we were inundated with propaganda about “responsible” fatherhood and “good fathering”. The underlying message was that most fathers are ir-reponsible and their “fathering” needs improvement. But the insult added to injury was precisely the falsehood that Carlson reserves for himself to utter: Fathers whose children are confiscated by crooked tyrannical family courts have “abandoned” them.

Vice-President Al Gore initiated a White House program, and many state governors and even foreign governments followed suit: conferences, books, articles, films, TV shows — all filled with the same sentimental cliches and empty platitudes as Carlson’s video, scolding and nagging men to practice their officially accepted version of this “fathering”. (Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recently displayed similar dishonesty by recycling the deception.) Federally funded scholars like David Blankenhorn and David Popenoe produced books touting the party line. The media credulously joined the witch hunt. We heard no objections from anyone (except feminists, ironically and perfunctorily), though of course fathers themselves were never allowed to be heard — as they are not in Carlson’s film.

None of the “fatherhood advocates” explained how government officials could “promote” fatherhood or “encourage” good fathering — or (another theme) “reconnect fathers with their children”. It turned out that “good fathering” meant feminist-approved fathering and feminist psychotherapy, and “reconnecting” with your children meant paying child support.

Meanwhile governments intensified ongoing efforts to disconnect more children from their fathers in order to fill their coffers with more child support. President Bill Clinton’s “Welfare Reform” tried (in vain) to reduce the welfare roles by “cracking down” on alleged “deadbeat dads”. Here too the media showed credulity rather than scepticism or scrutiny toward the government. Journalist Bernard Goldberg said, “We’ve done a million stories at the networks on deadbeats dads…but almost none on how too many divorced women use custody and visitation as weapons to punish their ex-husbands.” And absolutely zero on how family court judges were ripping millions of children away from fit and legally innocent fathers in order to plunder them for the “child support” that was really judge support, because it funded their own salaries and those of other functionaries.
This, not fathers “abandoning” their children, is the cause of this crisis — entirely.

Now, according to Carlson, fathers are to blame even when they are not fathers, because they refuse to marry unappealing, litigious women and find their children judicially kidnapped by juridical gangsters. The message is the same: Fathers cause problems when they are present, when they are “absent”, and even when they are never fathers in the first place. And still not a word about the corruption of family courts or injustices of the divorce industry.

It is hardly surprising that, 30 years on, the problem is worse than ever, because those programs could never do anything other than make it worse. Even amid Covid, election rigging, multiple forever wars, and impending economic catastrophe, former gang leader John Turnipseed still calls fatherlessness “the biggest problem we have in the nation”, and Jason Whitlock, Candace Owens, and Larry Elder say the same. (DeSantis recently showed, yet again, how to evade and worsen it.)

This should provoke a major outcry from throughout the “Manosphere”. If men can coalesce around rejection of this lie, this film may do some good in getting the abuses that Carlson avoids onto the public agenda.
~~~
This is by far the most dishonest and cowardly thing I have ever seen from Tucker Carlson.

I have criticized him repeated for his dishonesty on this topic and for his obvious fear of the divorce industry. But until now, I have tried to be charitable. He has long given indications that this topic interests him deeply. Little asides in his commentaries, hinting at things he dares not say. On other other hand, I happen to know that he is well aware of the real cause of this ongoing crisis, but like the rest of the mainstream media he chooses mendacity instead of truth.
By this, he signals that he is part of the problem: pretending to address a problem by blaming those who suffer under it because you fear offending those who are perpetrating it.
I have also published numerous articles about this dirty scam in mainstream and scholarly journals, as well as my books, starting with Taken Into Custody: The War on Fathers, Marriage, and the Family:

• “Is There Really a Fatherhood Crisis?” www.independent.org/tir/2004-spring/is-there-really-a-fatherhood-crisis/
• “The Failure of Fatherhood Policy” www.lewrockwell.com/2004/09/stephen-baskerville/the-failure-of-fatherhood-policy/
• “The Federal Bureau of Marriage” www.academia.edu/34065959/The_Federal_Bureau_of_Marriage
Sadly, none of these are out of date, because nothing has changed, except for the worse.

If you want to read more analysis that will push you to think “outside the box,” you will find it in my recent book, Who Lost America? Why the United States Went “Communist” — and What to Do about It — available from Amazon.

Stephen Baskerville is Professor of Politics (retired) at the Collegium Intermarium in Warsaw. His books and recent articles are available at www.StephenBaskerville.com.










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StephenBaskerville.com

Tucker Carlson's Dishonest Film about the Fatherhood Crisis
Are we back in the 1990s?
STEPHEN BASKERVILLE
APR 30

 




READ IN APP
 
It is truly sad to see Tucker Carlson producing this kind of vapid drivel. Many people admire Carlson, and his influence is enormous. But this is beyond belief.


Carlson just released a new video: “Fathers Wanted”. It may be a tribute to his sense of shame that he refrains from narrating it himself, and he seems to make only two appearances. One (54:00) is to scold fathers for “abandoning” their children.

This is a throwback to the 1990s/2000s. For those too young to remember, we were inundated with propaganda about “responsible” fatherhood and “good fathering”. The underlying message was that most fathers are ir-reponsible and their “fathering” needs improvement. But the insult added to injury was precisely the falsehood that Carlson reserves for himself to utter: Fathers whose children are confiscated by crooked tyrannical family courts have “abandoned” them.

Vice-President Al Gore initiated a White House program, and many state governors and even foreign governments followed suit: conferences, books, articles, films, TV shows — all filled with the same sentimental cliches and empty platitudes as Carlson’s video, scolding and nagging men to practice their officially accepted version of this “fathering”. (Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recently displayed similar dishonesty by recycling the deception.) Federally funded scholars like David Blankenhorn and David Popenoe produced books touting the party line. The media credulously joined the witch hunt. We heard no objections from anyone (except feminists, ironically and perfunctorily), though of course fathers themselves were never allowed to be heard — as they are not in Carlson’s film.

None of the “fatherhood advocates” explained how government officials could “promote” fatherhood or “encourage” good fathering — or (another theme) “reconnect fathers with their children”. It turned out that “good fathering” meant feminist-approved fathering and feminist psychotherapy, and “reconnecting” with your children meant paying child support.

Meanwhile governments intensified ongoing efforts to disconnect more children from their fathers in order to fill their coffers with more child support. President Bill Clinton’s “Welfare Reform” tried (in vain) to reduce the welfare roles by “cracking down” on alleged “deadbeat dads”. Here too the media showed credulity rather than scepticism or scrutiny toward the government. Journalist Bernard Goldberg said, “We’ve done a million stories at the networks on deadbeats dads…but almost none on how too many divorced women use custody and visitation as weapons to punish their ex-husbands.” And absolutely zero on how family court judges were ripping millions of children away from fit and legally innocent fathers in order to plunder them for the “child support” that was really judge support, because it funded their own salaries and those of other functionaries.

This, not fathers “abandoning” their children, is the cause of this crisis — entirely.

Now, according to Carlson, fathers are to blame even when they are not fathers, because they refuse to marry unappealing, litigious women and find their children judicially kidnapped by juridical gangsters. The message is the same: Fathers cause problems when they are present, when they are “absent”, and even when they are never fathers in the first place. And still not a word about the corruption of family courts or injustices of the divorce industry.

It is hardly surprising that, 30 years on, the problem is worse than ever, because those programs could never do anything other than make it worse. Even amid Covid, election rigging, multiple forever wars, and impending economic catastrophe, former gang leader John Turnipseed still calls fatherlessness “the biggest problem we have in the nation”, and Jason Whitlock, Candace Owens, and Larry Elder say the same. (DeSantis recently showed, yet again, how to evade and worsen it.)

This should provoke a major outcry from throughout the “Manosphere”. If men can coalesce around rejection of this lie, this film may do some good in getting the abuses that Carlson avoids onto the public agenda.

~~~

This is by far the most dishonest and cowardly thing I have ever seen from Tucker Carlson.

I have criticized him repeated for his dishonesty on this topic and for his obvious fear of the divorce industry. But until now, I have tried to be charitable. He has long given indications that this topic interests him deeply. Little asides in his commentaries, hinting at things he dares not say. On other other hand, I happen to know that he is well aware of the real cause of this ongoing crisis, but like the rest of the mainstream media he chooses mendacity instead of truth.

By this, he signals that he is part of the problem: pretending to address a problem by blaming those who suffer under it because you fear offending those who are perpetrating it.

I have also published numerous articles about this dirty scam in mainstream and scholarly journals, as well as my books, starting with Taken Into Custody: The War on Fathers, Marriage, and the Family:

“Is There Really a Fatherhood Crisis?” www.independent.org/tir/2004-spring/is-there-really-a-fatherhood-crisis/

“The Failure of Fatherhood Policy” www.lewrockwell.com/2004/09/stephen-baskerville/the-failure-of-fatherhood-policy/

“The Federal Bureau of Marriage” www.academia.edu/34065959/The_Federal_Bureau_of_Marriage

Sadly, none of these are out of date, because nothing has changed, except for the worse.

If you want to read more analysis that will push you to think “outside the box,” you will find it in my recent book, Who Lost America? Why the United States Went “Communist” — and What to Do about It — available from Amazon.


Stephen Baskerville is Professor of Politics (retired) at the Collegium Intermarium in Warsaw. His books and recent articles are available at www.StephenBaskerville.com.

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