The 25 Most Important Fatherhood Moments In the Past 25 Years

If you’re not a dad, it’s easy to assume that Jerry Seinfeld stopped being relevant in the 1990s. But, one of the wonderful things about the 21st-century Seinfeld, is seeing this venerable comedian turn into a Dad Comic. In his 2020 special 23 Hours to Kill, Seinfeld brilliantly compares parenting to keeping a baby alligator in your house.

“You put it in your tub…and you feel the little…bitey…teeth. And then time passes, and you think — You know, I think we have to get this thing the hell out of here!”

While it’s fair to say that the legacy of Bill Cosby has been tarnished, it is significant that the very first animated series to ever air on Nick at Nite is a now-defunct show called Fatherhood.

To be clear, Cosby wasn’t really in the show, and though it was based on one of his books called Fatherhood, this show was very much its own thing. It’s sort of hard to imagine an animated show called Fatherhood in 2025, but that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be.

For what it’s worth, Cosby isn’t the only person who has a book titled Fatherhood. The editors of Fatherly published one, too, back in 2021. And ours is almost as funny as the Nick at Nite cartoon.

We’re gonna have two mentions of the Star Trek franchise on this list, so get ready for that. But, honestly, in terms of fascinating pop culture moments around fatherhood, the J.J. Abrams-directed 2009 Star Trek reboot has to be discussed. First of all, the trailers for this movie really used this tagline: “This is not your father’s Star Trek.”

The funny thing was, with that sh*t-eating grin, Chris Pine’s James T. Kirk was very much representative of an old-school take on Star Trek, a ton of action, punching, and one-liners. The movie was also literally about fathers and sons, and how people forge their own paths outside of the legacy they’re expected to carry. Plus, can you believe that a pre-Thor Chris Hemsworth played Chris Pine’s dad?

Today, George Lucas has four kids in total, but during the era of the Star Wars prequels, from 1999 to 2005, he had three: Amanda, Katie, and Jett. And all of them were in Star Wars. But, because Lucas is classy and didn’t want to make this into a big nepotism thing, those kids are all in fairly under-the-radar, secret roles.

Katie was even credited as “Jenna Green” for a background role in The Phantom Menace. Meanwhile, Jett plays a young padawan named “Zett Jukassa,” seen briefly in Revenge of the Sith. Finally, Amanda had a small background role in Revenge of the Sith, alongside her father.

Is being a father the way you see yourself? If you were a dad in the 20th century, the answer would be very different than it is today. According to a Pew Research Center survey published in 2023, 85 percent of fathers with kids under 18 claim that being a parent is either the most or one of the most “important aspects of who they are as a person.”

This is huge. Identifying as a father first is simply something that wasn’t in vogue a few decades back. In the 1980s, comedies like Mr. Mom seemed edgy because of a challenge to gender norms. Now, those gender norms are utterly different.

Though the late Gene Hackman’s portrayal of patriarch Royal Tennenbaum gets a lot of the attention in The Royal Tenenbaums, this modern classic has another great dad role model. Yes, Ben Stiller is the man who gave us Zoolander, and currently, the mind behind Severance. But, in Wes Anderson’s modern classic, he also gave us a tender and hilarious portrayal of fatherhood.

Chas Tenenbaum is a widow, and as such, strives to be the ultimate parent, concerned with safety, and essentially begins the movie as a laughable helicopter parent. But by the end of the movie, Chas makes peace with his own dad, his demons, and learns to lighten up a bit. We could all have a bit of this character’s desire for organization for our kids. And we could all learn to change, too.

People can disagree on various issues around youth sports, but one thing all dads know is true is simple: You’ve got to support your kids. And so, NBA legend Dwyane Wade’s support of his daughter, Zaya Wade, is an exceptional example of what it looks like when dads step up.

On February 25, 2023, at the 54th NAACP Image Awards, Wade made it clear that standing with Zaya, who is trans, was his duty as a father. “Zaya, as your father, all I’ve wanted to do was get it right,” he said. “I admire how you’ve handled the ignorance in our world … that you face every day. To say that your village is proud of you is an understatement. Thank you for showing me that there’s more than just one way to communicate effectively.”

The fact that Eminem sings a track rather than raps would be a significant cultural moment. But, Eminem’s “Hailie’s Song” in 2002 was a bigger deal than perhaps we’ve admitted. Prior to “Hailie’s Song” the image of Eminem was a little less sympathetic, but the utterly honest sentiment of the song for his daughter changed all that.

It’s a song about a parent trying to explain the conflicting emotions inside all of us. Whether or not Eminem is a great dad or not isn’t the point. This song was a big deal.

Go to a party and talk to a dad about what they’re reading. At least half the time, if you mention Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books, you’re going to get a big smile. Boomer dads love Reacher. GenX dads love Reacher. Millennial dads love Reacher. Currently, the Amazon Prime Video version of Reacher is one of the biggest shows on the planet, which makes sense since the fan base has been ready for this show since 1997.

But what’s significant about Reacher as a TV series is that it’s a vast improvement over the forgettable Tom Cruise movies Jack Reacher (2012) and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016). Crusie was totally miscast as Reacher in those films, and as such, those flicks nearly ruined an excellent action franchise. Reacher is popular because he’s a vargant Sherlock Holmes fused with an American James Bond. Alan Ritchson’s take on the character has done what Cruise couldn’t do: Bring Reacher to the people.

Although Matthew McConaughey’s father passed away in 1992, he’s more recently come forward about how that death impacted him and his worldview. “Through the mourning and the pain, it’s the biggest moment of becoming a man.”McConaughey explained in a 2025 conversation with Interview. “There’s a certain safety net that I’ve always had behind me that’s gone.”

For many of us, McConaughey is like a Texan version of Yoda; he seems like he contains endless wisdom, and his approach toward life, love, and family is endlessly inspirational. And so, for him to be so clearly vulnerable about losing a parent is incredible. Losing a parent rewires your brain, regardless of age.

There had never really been midnight releases for books until the year 2000. And this meant that the beginning of the century was kicked off with moms and dads driving their little witches and wizards to bookstores to get the latest Harry Potter books.

While the first three books were very successful, the release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in the year 2000 created an utterly new phenomenon. Many kids were driven to these midnight events by their parents, and a ton of those kids are parents now themselves.

We have a complicated relationship with Hogwarts and the Wizarding World these days, but for parents and kids, the Harry Potter midnight madness was a uniquely 21st-century event.

As soon as Mark Zuckerberg made Facebook available to the general public, the era of the chat room officially died, and the world of Facebook groups was born. Today, Facebook skews a bit older than some of the other social media platforms, and that’s probably because 19 years ago, contemporary dads were all still in their twenties.

We got on Facebook back then, we created friend groups around different interests (Soccer, Video Games, Seinfeld memes), and now, we’re still there. Facebook groups didn’t start as Dad Groups, but that’s what time does to you.

If there’s anyone who really should have the title of America’s TV Dad, it’s LeVar Burton. Not only did he raise generations of readers on Reading Rainbow, thanks to his role as Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation, but he also inspired countless people to tackle the STEM fields in new and innovative ways.

In 2023, Burton brought all of this metafictionally full circle. In the critically acclaimed Season 3 of Star Trek: Picard, Burton co-starred with his real-life daughter, Mica Burton, who played his onscreen daughter, Alandra La Forge. When those episodes aired, Fatherly talked to Burton about how Geordi was portrayed as a sweetly overprotective parent. Burton’s response was perfect: “I don’t know a dad who’s not overprotective. All dads are overprotective. I mean, we live in a culture and in a society where that is our primary responsibility, to protect, defend, and provide for. That’s why we’re here.”

Today, it is well understood that The National is the most “dad rock” bands currently in existence on the planet. But this wasn’t always the case. There’s no way the band thought of themselves this way back in the early aughts, but something changed after the release of their 2010 masterpiece High Violet.

Without really meaning to, The National transitioned from being a really good band to the most important rock band for a certain kind of 30-something and 40-something man. High Violet is the beginning of the version of The National we have now, and fifteen years later, we still owe money to the money, to the money that we owe.

When Robert Downey Jr. uttered the words “I am Iron Man” in 2008, it changed the game for male cinematic heroes. And so, it’s still hard to grasp that just eleven years later, in Avengers: Endgame, the heroic Tony Stark would die. But the most compelling thing about the journey of fatherhood across the saga of Iron Man wasn’t him defeating Thanos. Instead, it was Tony’s relationship with his daughter, Morgan Stark (Lexi Rabe).

As all dads know, sometimes kids come up with hilarious phrases to express their affection, and Lexi’s “I love you 3000” remains perfect because it’s so real.

One of the toughest afflictions that parents have to suffer in the modern age is the existence of a militia of mutant canines hellbent on providing alternative forms of law enforcement, healthcare, and basic public safety. We don’t know if the Paw Patrol is funded at all by taxpayer money, and we don’t want to know. (In the 2021 movie, we’re meant to think raw capitalism funds the Paw Patrol.)

In any case, Paw Patrol is a whole thing, and so, the moment in which Dax Shepard both embraced and mocked Paw Patrol in an ad for Paw Patrol was a perfect catharsis. Paw Patrol kind of sucks, but it also knows that it sucks.

Paid paternity leave is more robust in the 2020s than it’s ever been before. In fact, laws around giving employees paid paternity leave have only been strengthened in the past few years, not weakened. If you are a new dad and you’re wondering about taking time off in those early months, you shouldn’t really wonder. There’s a whole world of benefits for dads out there that simply weren’t as prevalent in the previous century.

No excuses, check out our guide to paid time off right here.

Daniel Craig’s 2021 swan song as James Bond wasn’t necessarily the best-loved 007 movie of all time, but it did deliver one of the best dad moments of the century. For decades, James Bond was a symbol beloved by dads, but a character who existed in a childless space.

No Time To Die flipped the script on all of that, by revealing that 007 has a five-year-old daughter, Mathilde Swann (Lisa-Dorah Sonnet), whom Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux) has kept a secret. By the end of the movie, Bond has to die to make sure Madeleine and Mathilde can live. It would have been nice for Bond to live and be a family man, but as a symbol, the idea that 007 ends his life for his family was a powerful moment.

Regardless of how you feel about Bluey, the fact of the matter is that in terms of cartoon dads, the character of Bandit (voiced by David McCormack) has eclipsed all other cartoon dads. Not as overtly progressive as Daniel Tiger’s dad, but also not as horrible and useless as, say, Homer Simpson, the character of Bandit straddles the line between realism and aspiration with impressive nuance.

We may not all want to be Bandit at all times, but there is some version of various dads in him. Like it or not, this is the one that all future cartoon dads will be compared to.

When Professor Robert Kelly had a work call interrupted while on global news, a meme was born. He didn’t mean to become “BBC Dad,” but the hilarious moments in which his Kelly’s children waltzed into his work-from-home office touched a nerve with the parenting population of the world.

Ironically, just a few years later, after the lockdowns of 2020, many of us became BBC Dad, and in truth, many of us still are. The nice thing about BBC Dad, was that we could all agree that it was normal for your kids to exist right alongside your professional life. Things are messy, and you’re doing a lot of jobs at the same time. For many of us, it seems like our working hours never end, and that’s because, in truth, as a father, you’re never off the clock.

Prior to the 21st century, nobody needed to explain why J.R.R. Tolkien’s books were wonderful. And yet, in 2001, with the debut of Peter Jackson’s big screen adaptation The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, an entirely new pop culture vocabulary was codified. Fathers benefited from this because they either shared the films and the stories with their kids for the first time or were kids themselves when these films hit theaters. (Using Hobbit math, we’re counting being a teenager or being in your early 20s as a “kid” here.)

For those who haven’t read Tolkien out loud to their kid, you’re missing out. And, it’s possible, without the popularity of The Lord of the Rings movies, several generations of parents wouldn’t have had the renewed permission to do so.

Of all 21st-century presidents, regardless of party or ideology, Barack Obama is easily the best symbol of a father figure who is as aspirational as he is relatable. As the dad of Sasha and Malia, Obama was present and also honest about his shortcomings.

In 2021, Fatherly spoke to President Obama about how to find time to slow down and see your child grow up. He mentioned coaching Sasha’s basketball team, “even in the midst of the presidency.” He talked about the sheer “joy” of those moments, and regretted that he hadn’t “planned to have more of that” and a little “less of meetings in the situation room.”

The reason this is so powerful is that Obama, like so many dads, admits when it gets it wrong. Having regrets and feeling like you wanted to be more present is part of the journey of fatherhood, and as a leader and example for other dads, Obama gets it.

Whether you think about Bob Odenkirk as one part of Mr. Show, or maybe Saul from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, the truth is, the man is a national treasure. Brilliantly, he also showed parents everywhere how to be better at their most important job.

In 2023, along with his daughter Erin (who provided the illustrations), Odenkirk released a collection of children’s poetry called Zilot. Here’s the thing: These poems were ones that Odenkirk wrote with his kids when they were much smaller. “I want to tell everyone, any parent who’s thinking of trying this, and I hope you are, that I really did let the kids write the poems,” Odenkirk told Fatherly when the book was released. The result was not only a great book (seriously, quirky kids will love it) but also an important lesson to parents everywhere: Make things with your kids.

During the age of the Baby Boomers, it was still possible to think of dads as distant, uninvolved people. Martin Amis described this phenomenon as being a “parent emeritus.” You’ve got the title. You’re hanging around. But what do you actually do?

This attitude has shifted substantially in the 21st century. As of 2022, according to The Institute for Family Studies, college-educated fathers with children under age 18 at home now spend an average of 10 hours, 12 minutes a week on child care. Overall, the trend indicates that dads are 33 percent more involved with caregiving than they were in the previous century. Basically, the new generations of dads are nothing like the dads we grew up with. Which, hopefully, means the future will be even better.