Talk about a welcome tear-jerker of a commercial. Budweiser has one for you as a tribute to all the stepfathers out there who stepped up and parented children who came into their lives via marriage.

An advertisement in support of stepfathers is a good hook. It’s an untraditional one for Father’s Day, where the main focus is on biological fathers. We know the rate of divorce is almost 50% so there are a lot of stepfathers out there. This ad shows three stepfathers and their stepkids, all now grown adults. Spoiler Alert: They all ask to be formally adopted by their stepfathers. I know. Grab a tissue and watch. It’s titled “For The Fathers Who Stepped Up”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggfVLhLNsUI&feature=youtu.be

See what I mean? How wonderful is that ad in the age of fighting the patriarchy and blaming men for all the woes of the world? Men are not the enemy of all humanity and it’s nice to see a major corporation come forward with acknowledgment of those men who deserve it. I’m not naive. I know there are some bad apples as there are in every general group of people but I choose to applaud the men who are doing the right thing. They come into a marriage that includes children and they work it all out. Best of all, the adult children are grateful and love them. I’ll take more of that in this world all day long. This is not a slam on biological fathers, either, at least not from me. I am not painting the majority of dads as though they abandon their children after divorce. This is just a different take on fatherhood.

Budweiser is making a donation to the Stepfamily Foundation, too.

Text on the screen at the end of the film announces that Budweiser will be donating $1 to the Stepfamily Foundation, which supports blended families, for every story that is shared on social media about a stepfather stepping up.

“On a day when the world celebrates fathers, Budweiser wants to shine an unexpected light on fatherhood,” said Monica Rustgi, Vice President of Marketing for Budweiser. “That’s why this Father’s Day, Budweiser is toasting stepfathers who love their stepchildren like their own.”

As it turns out, studies are now showing that the rate of divorce is declining and we have millennials to thank for that. They are waiting to get married.

“One of the reasons for the decline is that the married population is getting older and more highly educated,” Cohen told Bloomberg. The study notes that newly married women are now “more likely to be in their first marriages, more likely to have BA degrees or higher education, less likely to be under age 25, and less likely to have own children in the household,” which Cohen writes can all affect the risk of divorce.

Given these newly married couples are older and more highly educated, the study also predicts the divorce rate will continue to drop.

The rate of divorce has fallen by 18% from 2008 to 2016. The other side of the coin is that fewer Americans are getting married. Pew Research Center reports that the percentage of married Americans ages 18 and older has dropped since 1990.

Reports from the Pew Research Center bear this out: “Half of Americans ages 18 and older were married in 2017 … [which] is down 8 percentage points since 1990,” it notes. Pew says this is because Americans are staying single longer, but the organization didn’t weigh in on whether that’s by choice (to travel and establish a career before getting married), or, if economic conditions mean life isn’t stable enough to get married earlier, by necessity.

The Millennial generation may end up producing fewer stepdads in the future.

https://twitter.com/budweiserusa/status/1138826073242816512