My niece has a pookie dad. What’s a pookie dad, you ask? Oh, just a perfectly regular Gen Alpha father who is way too soft for his own good. Basically, poles apart from what we millennials, boomers, and Gen X-ers are used to seeing in dads.
Blame it on patriarchy if you want, but back then, fathers were the undisputed authorities of the house. Their word wasn’t just final—it was unquestioned. You could negotiate with your siblings, even appeal to your mother, but once Dad had decided, the matter was settled. The man of the house was tough—a tough nut to crack, if you will. You’d rather do anything to avoid seeing that “I’m disappointed” face. I wouldn’t say moms were easy to convince, but they did have a soft spot.
They weren’t cinematic caricatures designed to instill fear, like a Bollywood villain such as Gabbar to scare children off to sleep, but there was a certain distance, an emotional formality. And sure, Dad wasn’t exactly intimidating at all times, but he was still someone we were a little timid around. He was firm, and when you were in trouble, there was no escaping the consequences.
Cut to now. Enter pookie dad.
The pookie dads of today? Well, they’ve taken “tough love” and thrown it out the window. Nowadays, I know more dads who would give their children an extra hour of screen time for throwing a tantrum than dads who’d actually, you know, discipline them. Of course, with the exception of a few.
And it’s not just anecdotal. The phrase itself—pookie—floated into my life through a conversation with my sister, who mentioned that her daughter’s teacher had described modern fathers as being “all pookie.” I laughed. The word felt absurd, almost unserious. But the more I sat with it, the more it seemed to capture something real.
I’m at an age where almost all my friends and cousins have toddlers or young kids at home. And in almost every young family I observe, the pattern repeats. The father is the one slipping an extra sweet, extending screen time, softening the edge of a punishment. The mother, meanwhile, looks like she’s just completed a marathon no one applauded. She becomes the enforcer, the one who says no, the one who insists on routine, boundaries, and consequences. She is the one letting out an exasperated sigh and saying, “My husband is too soft with the kids,” or “He just lets them get away with everything!”
Pookie, meet discipline. Discipline, meet pookie.
Let me give you an example.
The first time I witnessed my brother-in-law in full pookie mode, I was genuinely taken aback. My niece was in the middle of a spectacular tantrum, demanding something she absolutely did not need. Without much hesitation, he shrugged and said, “Well, we do earn for them, don’t we?”
I was like, “Wait, what?” I mean, yes, you do. You earn for them, you love them, you want to give them everything. But isn’t part of that love also about teaching restraint? About helping them understand that not every want needs to be met? About having tough conversations? About not laughing off their jibes or encouraging tantrums?
Because that’s where the discomfort begins to creep in. The softness, while endearing, can start to blur into permissiveness. And when that happens, something else quietly shifts within the household dynamic. This soft-dad dynamic creates a massive power imbalance at home.
The mother becomes the “bad cop.”
I’ve seen it play out in ways both subtle and stark. My sister once tried to limit her daughter’s screen time after hours of uninterrupted cartoons on her father’s phone. The reaction she received was not just resistance—it was betrayal. I swear my niece gave her a look that screamed, “Why do you hate me?”
And in that moment, it wasn’t just about the phone. It was about alignment. One parent had become the source of comfort, the other the source of correction (the villain who enforced the rules).
That imbalance, more than the extra chocolate or extended screen time, is where the real issue lies. Not in the existence of the pookie dad, but in the absence of a shared line.
And yet, it would be too easy—and perhaps unfair—to dismiss this entire shift as a failure of discipline.
Because what we are witnessing is not just indulgence. It is also presence.
These fathers are more involved than many before them. They are not distant providers orbiting the family—they are in the thick of it. They are emotionally available in ways that earlier generations of fathers often weren’t.
If previous models of fatherhood were defined by authority, this one is defined by participation—not just listening to your toddler’s achievements, but experiencing them firsthand.
And maybe that’s where the word pookie does its quiet work. It names something we’re still unsure how to take seriously: tenderness in men that isn’t hidden behind restraint or filtered through distance. We laugh at it, soften it with humour, make it sound unserious—because we’re not entirely used to seeing it so openly.
But tenderness, left unchecked, can slip into avoidance. It is easier to give in than to hold a boundary. Easier to be liked than to be resisted. And parenting, inconveniently, requires both.
What makes this moment interesting is not that one model is better than the other, but that we are in transition. The older framework—firm, distant, authoritative—is no longer the default. The newer one—present, soft, emotionally expressive—is still figuring out its limits.
Pookie dads are loving. They are present. They are, in many ways, exactly what earlier generations of fathers were not.
Gen Alpha, growing up within this shift, may be the first generation that doesn’t have to decode their fathers’ affection. They are not learning to read between the lines; they are being spoken to directly. That, in itself, is no small change.
But they are also watching how boundaries are negotiated, how authority is shared, and how consistency—or the lack of it—shapes their world.
Perhaps the goal is not to abandon the pookie dad, but to refine him. The pookie dad is not the opposite of the fathers we grew up with—he is their evolution.
But evolution, like parenting, only works when it finds balance. The challenge, then, isn’t to return to the fathers we once feared, but to build fathers we can rely on—present, affectionate, and steady enough to say no when it matters.
Because love that always says yes may feel good in the moment—but it doesn’t always hold in the long run.
Jasleen Kaur is a writer whose work explores identity, internet culture, and contemporary human behavior through essays and cultural commentary. With a background in teaching, she blends personal reflection with sharp cultural observation. Her writing has been featured in national newspapers, digital platforms of leading magazines, and international literary magazines. She can be found yapping about all her pursuits on Instagram at @sethi_jasleenk.
Featured photo by Keira Burton (Pexels)
