The Bewildered Father

I've been thinking about this for awhile now, and having been on Facebook and seeing how many of my old friends have kids has only intensified it. There's a certain type of character, usually fictional although there's one example of it that I can think of in 'real life,' a father who's sort of aloof to fathering, at least as the previous generation did it. Usually, these characters are trapped in a sort of arrested development, a permanent adolescence, and yet, as the audience, I think we're suppose to believe they're good fathers. I'm thinking of Paul Rudd's character in Knocked Up, someone who, when asked to watch the kids, says "Oh, good, we'll watch Taxi Cab Confessions." Being a parent seems almost like a joke to them, or that it isn't really happening.

The Platonic ideal of the bewildered father is Jeff Tweedy as portrayed in the documentary I'm Trying to Break Your Heart. There's a scene (a shiny new donkey for whoever brings me the YouTube clip of this scene) where the tour bus stops at a rest stop, the kind of place that features a Roy Rogers restaurant, a shop selling souveniers of whatever area it is, and a TCBY that's never open. Tweedy carries his crying kid into the Burger King where he finds his wife waiting in the line. The scene plays out something like this:

Tweedy's wife: "What happened? Why's he crying?"
Tweedy: "It's not my fault."
Tweedy's wife: "Well, what happened?"
Tweedy: "The claw machine." (Gives kid to wife and makes a claw with his hand.) "The claw machine ate his quarter. He had the little Spongebob guy all lined up, and the machine..."
Tweedy's wife consoles the child, then: "Jesus Christ, Jeff." (Walks off to do some real mothering.)
Tweedy stands there, looking like he isn't completely sure that what transpired actually happened, and that maybe he'd like some curly fries.

Other examples of this phenomenon would be Moe in Beautiful Girls, who shuffles around the ice rink looking like a doofus, and watches helplessly as his kids pour mustard on each other's laps. Another good one is David Duchovony (sex addict) in Trust the Man. There's a certain nonchalance to his character, maybe due to the fact that he doesn't have to work, and he brings this same attitude to his parenting. He buys porn with his three-year-old daughter, happily takes mid-morning naps, and lets his son struggle to get down an art project that he shouldn't be taking home yet anyway (If you haven't seen this movie, you ought to. There's at least ten really good lines, which is all you need to have a rentable movie.).

My question to you, fair reader, is this: why is this type of character suddenly becoming so prevalent? Is it the case, as my wife believes, that such a character can only exist in the imagination of the fatherless man? Is this the natural reaction of our age -- already so tinged with irony to begin with -- to growing up? I'd love to hear from some folks with kids.