Sisko: The Best Space Dad?

(Fathers Day)

Fathers Day is coming up, so we started giving some thought to some great dads from popular
culture, especially science fiction. Star Treks a great source for this; the excellent channel
Trexspertise already made a compelling case for Jean-Luc Picard as a kind of father figure, but
we wanted to talk about another great TV dad from the same franchise, perhaps the best dad in
all of outer space: Captain Benjamin Sisko from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Right from the start, Siskos position in the Star Trek franchise is unique: a Commander who lost
his wife Jennifer in the Battle of Wolf 359, Sisko is forced to raise his teenage son Jake alone in
his new post of Deep Space Nine, a dangerous space station on the frontier of Federation space.
In the show, not only does Sisko have to deal with the pressures of command, and the various
alien attacks and replicator space viruses he encounters week to week, he has the more personal
task of raising an adolescent boy all by himself.

Whats remarkable about Sisko and Jakes relationship is its basis on a fundamental core of
mutual trust and respect. Most dads in TV are portrayed as the bumbling idiots on network
sitcoms, or abusive, negative influences who act as the motivation for a main character to
overcome their own issues. Sisko and Jake, through all seven seasons of DS9, have this sense of
closeness that feels genuine and heartwarming, the two growing as a family and as men.

In the early seasons, when Jake was a teen, subplots featuring the two dealt with the typical
tensions of raising a teenage boy Sisko worried that he was hanging out with the wrong crowd
in his budding relationship with Nog, for instance, or his crush on an older dabo girl from
Quarks. However, the show avoids the cheap drama of Jake pushing himself away from his dad
at all turns, Sisko is patient, helpful, and listens to his son. The two are still stinging from the
loss of Jakes mother, and so they cling to each other for emotional support.

Sisko and Jake found numerous ways to bond throughout the course of the show. They were
huge fans of baseball, which had otherwise died out by the 24th century (speaking of which, what
do other future dads use to play catch with their sons? Tribbles?). Sisko loved passing the
cooking traditions of his father down to Jake whenever he could, as well. In the season 3 episode
Explorers, the two bond even further when testing an old Bajoran solar sailer they built
together.

As the seasons went on, and Jake discovered that he didnt want to go into Starfleet like his
father, but become a writer, Sisko came around to the idea and supported his son without
judgment. Sure, the post-scarcity world of the 24th century removes the whole argument of how
will you put food on the table?, but Siskos maturity in accepting that his son doesnt want to
join the family business, as it were, is still refreshing. As a young adult, Jake returns his fathers
love by setting him up with freighter captain Kasidy Yates what other son in science fiction
would be his own fathers wingman?

Siskos good parenting pays off as Jake grows up throughout the series, their positive, nurturing
relationship instilling in Jake good values that he showcases as a character. You could argue that,
without Jakes friendship and patience virtues he learned from his father - his best friend Nog
would never have broken free of his own stifling family structure and joined Starfleet. During the
Dominion War he becomes a war reporter, writing news stories and reporting on the brief
occupation of DS9 by the Dominion. Sure, Jake makes mistakes along the way, but he learns and
grows from them, and its hard to argue that he would be able to do that without the values his
father instills in him.

Which brings us to the centerpiece of Sisko and Jakes father-son relationship, and one of the
greatest episodes of Star Trek ever: the fourth-season episode The Visitor. Telling the story of an
alternate timeline where Sisko mysteriously disappears, The Visitor shows Jake spending the rest
of his life dedicating himself to finding a way to bring his father home. Even unstuck in time,
Sisko imparts sound parenting advice, after learning that his son gave up his dreams to search for
him: I'm no writer; but if I were, it seems to me I'd wanna poke my head up every once in a
while and take a look around, see what's going on. It's life, Jake. You can miss it if you don't
open your eyes. The Visitor is a great showcase for the kind of emotional storytelling Star Trek
is capable of, and I challenge you to watch it without getting a little misty.

Benjamin Sisko is a great dad by any measure, but his relationship with Jake is even more
remarkable given the relative lack of positive portrayals of African-American fatherhood in
television and pop culture. In a cultural landscape that often stereotypes men of color as being
irresponsible, absentee fathers, Avery Brooks made a concerted effort with Sisko to challenge
those preconceptions. As Brooks himself said in one interview, It's something that we have to
see more often, the relationship of a brown man and his son. Because historically, that's not how
it began in this country for brown families who didn't have the freedom of their own will and
volition, let alone the ability to hold their families together."

Its also said that, when Cirroc (sih-ROCK) Lofton, the actor who played Jake, wanted to leave
the show a few seasons in to start a music career, Brooks urged him to stay. In Brooks mind, it
was far more important to show a positive depiction of black fathers and sons in a positive,
nurturing relationship on television. Brooks even convinced the writers to reword the ending of
the series, in which Sisko leaves to join the Prophets in another plane of existence, to avoid the
perception that Sisko was yet another black father abandoning his children.

Even outside of this specific context, Benjamin Sisko easily wins the title of Best Space Dad.
Sensitive and nurturing, mature but assertive, Sisko showed TV audiences in the 1990s that
fathers didnt have to be the lazy, useless schlubs you saw on network sitcoms, or abusive
villains who are the source of the main characters hidden trauma. Sisko treats Jake like a
teammate, colleague, protg and friend throughout the seven years Deep Space Nine was on the
air, making their story one of the greatest father-son relationships ever put to television.