Near the stunning end of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons," Chris Keller admonishes Joe Keller, who denied responsibility for his own fatal actions, with these hard-hitting words: "I never saw you as a man. I saw you as my father."

Written shortly after World War II, this thought-provoking play came at a time when fathers - those returning from combat and those who toiled on the home front - were respected, even admired. A few years later, television brought into our homes happier stories about fathers, who knew best. We were entertained by comedies that reinforced, rather than weakened, the traditional family unit and the "head of the household."

But since the 1960s, times have changed - and not for the better. Too much of society now views many fathers not as men - role models and pillars of society - who work hard, provide for their families and play an important part in raising their sons and daughters.

Fathers too often are seen as caricatures - professionals who place the corporate ladder above family responsibilities, abusers of wives and children, or at least buffoons (check out the number of Father's Day cards that present Dad in this light) - if they are around at all.

These offensive mischaracterizations of fathers in general portray neither my father nor the other fathers I grew up around. Dads in our rural Southwest Idaho community generally were farmers, worked at the local lumber mill or in related fields like truck driving, or were merchants. Despite their long hours of hard work, they took time off to attend their sons' ball games, their daughters' concerts, and supported youth and church activities.

Then came LBJ's Great Society with anti-poverty programs that created family dependency not on breadwinning fathers but on government handouts, and the radical feminist movement that went beyond expanding and securing legitimate opportunities for women to dismissing men as irrelevant or second-class citizens.

Kathleen Parker, author of "Save the Males: Why Men Matter, Why Women Should Care," notes that because of these and other anti-male influences, "Fatherhood has been increasingly diminished the past few decades. We ... treat fathers as optional accessories."

The result of this societal upheaval has devastated the stability of the family unit - and the nation. In the early 1960s, the out-of-wedlock birth rate for white children was only 2.3 percent and 24 percent for black children. Now it stands 28 percent for white children, near 50 percent for Hispanic children and 71 percent for black children. Males are absent in a quarter to half of these homes.

Statistics show that children with a dad at home have a much greater chance of not growing up in poverty than do children in single-mother families. Yet too often family courts still treat caring divorced fathers as visitors in the lives of their own children.

But fathers most certainly matter still, and always will. What fathers were when I was growing up is what fathers can and should be today - and what many fathers are. Fathers, we must remember, are only men, not supermen. They won't become "a Jesus in this life," as Joe Keller tried to excuse himself.

It's time for fathers to reclaim their rightful place in the family and in society - not as an entitlement but by being all they can and should be. By being caring men involved in the lives of their children, whether toddlers or teens or grown up, by making the time to make it so. That's what a lot of being a father is all about.

By not giving in to social pressures from the left that devalue fathers and family life, men can give the role of fatherhood a resurgence, and all of society not only will see it happen but will benefit from this change.

Happy Father's Day, dads!

Ralph Nichols writes on public policy and legal issues from the Seattle area. He can be reached at ranichols2@yahoo.com.