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Ward Cleaver or James Bond?  Children are formed by the models that they see. The idea of a father was once expressed in the form of "Leave it to Beaver's" "Ward Cleaver" and other fathers in a number of evening shows such as "Father Knows Best," "Donna Reed Show" etc. Television producers removed these role models under the guise that they "were not real." A fellow recently made the claim that boys would look at their own dad and see that he was not Ward Cleaver and then suffer some "trauma." So Ward was replaced with "real men" like James Bond, who spent his time killing men and women and taking women sexually with equal calm and indifference. So a hired killer and womanizer replaced the image of a man who humbly sought to instruct his children in virtue within the various occurrences of daily family life. And so the name of Ward Cleaver became a means of expressing disdain for the "unrealistic" values. It was if to say, just as men do not wear ties and coats in the home, real men don't act anything like Ward Cleaver and to expect anything like that would be unrealistic as if living in a dream world.

I hadn't paid much attention to this phenomena until a priest who used to do Pre-Cana workshops with me asked the young women sitting in the audience, "Now, who would you rather marry . . . James Bond or Ward Cleaver?" After all of these years of the stereotype that Ward represented the first reaction would be predictable. Father would immediately go into a simple anecdote about a young man who enters the bathroom after a "conquest" and who looks into the mirror with a demur look and says, "Bond, James Bond." Everyone would laugh. However, as soon as they compared that image of the character of Ward Cleaver with the image of the character of James Bond, it was a simple choice. James Bond is the epitome of irresponsibility and incapable of regarding any woman other than as an object of his own sensual gratification. What engaged woman would want her husband to take her with indifference and abandon her immediately? What woman would want to be treated the way James Bond treated the women he encountered?

What was real about Ward Cleaver was not that he wore a suit and tie in the home at night but that he held values, which he used to guide his life, and sought to instill those values into his children. He tried to educate his sons to understand that the integrity of manhood is measured by the possession and exercise of virtue.

Ward Cleaver had a profound respect for his wife and his children as well as other people. He tried to instill that respect into his sons through his counsel and example. He was a man who was attentive to the needs of his children and made himself available to them. Eating meals with his family was a habitual experience. Communication concerning needs of his children was standard fare in the home. He communicated with his wife about various parental issues and they worked together to seek the best course of action. These discussions involved a variety of virtues and educational topics. He did not dominate his wife nor was he dominated. They listened to each other and possessed some sense of humor for each other's faults as well as their own.

One of the episodes centered on Ward's attempt to pass his own delightful experience with Mark Twain's "Hucklebery Finn." He remembered how exciting the book was to read and how he learned so many valuable lessons about life and character. He read the book with his sons and they enjoyed it as well. However, when Beaver followed Tom Sawyer's example and manipulated his friends into painting a fence for him, things didn't exactly turn out the way Ward had planned.

I can remember him going through his experience and having the humility to not take himself too seriously and making some adjustments for his children. Ward simply offered a reminder that there are times when parents want to recreate special things for their children and something gets lost in the translation from one generation to the next. The message was not "unreal" because every parent has experienced this in some way.

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