This Sunday is Father’s Day, a holiday where we bestow garish ties, nifty electronic gadgets and barbecue tools on our dads. Heart-felt poems and gushing odes to fathers are plentiful on greeting cards and on social media. Often our ideal image of a father comes from movies, books and television shows.

The gold standard in the fiction world has to be Atticus Finch from the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Atticus is a single father rearing two children in a small Southern town. He stands up for what’s right and disciplines his children when they need guidance. Plus when played by Gregory Peck, what’s not to admire and love.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Pat Conroy’s “The Great Santini.” In real life, Conroy’s father was an abusive drunk who beat his children and terrorized his whole family.

For baby boomers, there’s a variety of dad models to choose from, most of whom didn’t have a wife around to help with the children. Lord knows how that affected my generation. These single fathers include Steve Douglas from “My Three Sons” and Andy Taylor from “The Andy Griffith Show.”

I sometimes wonder how they’d handle the problems in today’s world. Opie never had a drug problem nor did Douglas ever face being unemployed, having his boys run away from home or talk back.

Currently the television show “black-ish” features a strong father who’s financially successful and absolutely adores his wife and children. Anthony Anderson plays Dre Johnson, the father on the show, and he cries when his eldest daughter goes off to college and worries he’s not teaching his children how to survive being a person of color in a mostly white world. Those are more realistic scenarios dads of all cultures and ethnicities face.

Probably television’s favorite father is Phil Dunphy from “Modern Family” who’s a child at heart, loves his family and struggles with being respected by his father in law. Of all the television fathers, I think I like Phil the best.

But as much as I like these programs, the fathers aren’t real. Movies, television and literature can’t nail down how real fathers shape and mold their children. They overlook the life real fathers face – a bloody trip to the emergency room, scrimping and saving for health care, clogged toilets and mowing the lawn week after week after week.

So in no particular order, here’s my list for the characteristics of an effective and good father.

They’re supportive. They back their child as they work toward becoming the best person they can be, cheer them for their successes and show them how to work their way through the failures.

They’re loving. They tuck their kids into bed at night, hold them tight when they’re scared and show and tell their children every single day that they’re special, important and loved. That doesn’t mean they’re softies – they discipline when the occasion requires tough love.

They’re dependable. They work. They come home. They show up. They’re sober. Day after day, month after month and year after year.

They say “no.” They willingly become the “bad guy” and tell their kids that they can’t stay out all night, they can’t do whatever they want and, no, they cannot eat that peanut butter and jelly sandwich in bed.

They’re respectful of themselves, their spouse, their in-laws, their job, their faith, society and their families. That doesn’t mean they’re pushovers – they’re quietly respectful.

They have a sense of humor. They make sure their children grow up with happy memories and they teach their offspring to laugh and roll with the punches when life throws them a curve ball.

They’re human. They admit when they’ve made a mistake, cry at graduations, occasionally burn the burgers on the grill and make at least one home repair job worse by attempting to do it themselves. But their children learn a valuable lesson – don’t be afraid to try, even if there’s a high probability of failure.

So to all the dads out there – and yes, that includes women who are dad in the family – Happy Father’s Day and may your burgers be perfectly grilled.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.