MARK MY WORD: SENSITIVE GUYS REPLACE HEARTLESS HEROES

I've never been one for romance novels.

Maybe it's just my guy mentality. But when you view life through rose-colored glasses, it just doesn't look quite right -- sort of like watching those early-color movies all over again.

Then too, it's hard to live up to those images of Mr. Stud seducing women in some fairy tale of a palace.

Now, things have gotten even worse in the world of romance novels.

Today's supermarket novelists have transformed those heartless heroes into nurturing, but hunky dads.

The hero gets a lump in his throat when he thinks of his darling kids, which occurs often in these books.

The mere sight of a vacuum cleaner sends our hero into a cleaning frenzy. And don't even ask about his cooking. It can send a woman straight out of the kitchen and into cuisine heaven. You'd think there were angels floating in that frying pan.

Who is this guy? It's Family Man. He's the 1990s hero of the billion-dollar romance novel industry. Children come first, followed by exercise in the gym and a night on the town.

Women like this stuff. They want men who will make them soup and pick up the kids from soccer practice.

It's better than the fellow who's really great with dueling pistols and horses, one psychotherapist told The Associated Press.

Personally, I wish these writers would stick with the galloping mustangs.

It's bad enough that women have this fantasy of being married to a sensitive, muscle-bound guy like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Now, they want us to cook and clean, too. This doesn't sound like romance to me.

Whatever happened to good, old drive-in romance?

The typical new-romance cover shows a shirtless Mr. Good Body cradling a baby or a couple sharing their bed with their toddler. Family hugs are in style.

Sam Grayson, the daddy in "Babies and a Blue-Eyed Man," is left with three kids after his wife, Donna, dumps him. Is she nuts?

Grayson loves his kids so much that when he has to leave them behind to look for a bigger house, he gets a "lump the size of Rhode Island ... in his throat" and has to undergo immediate surgery. He's ready to lie, cheat and steal to help his kids.

But this guy isn't just a sappy dad.

With his let's-make-love voice and his bedroom eyes, he blows into Rachel's life "like an unsettling wind." Did an out-of-work meteorologist write this book? And if this guy is the windy sort, shouldn't she be worried that there are storm clouds on the horizon?

In "Introducing Daddy," Adam Rabalais is a sexy guy who is a virtual quick-change artist when it comes to changing his daughter's diapers. When the kid needs a diaper change, he rushes to the rescue. He doesn't just sit in front of the TV and make his wife, Evie, do it.

"I'll do it," he said, and in an instant he had crossed the room and ... taken out the wipes and powder and had the baby freshly diapered in only moments. Evie, dumbfounded, watched in silence," the author wrote.

You've got to be kidding. I have two children under the age of 5 and have changed plenty of diapers. I've never been able to do it in only moments. And what about the dirty diaper? Did he throw it in the diaper pail or leave it out on the changing table for Evie to find later?

I'm not saying dads shouldn't change diapers. But romance, it's not. When you are standing there with baby formula stains on your sweatshirt, I don't imagine she's thinking, "What a hunk."

If romance novelists want guys to read their books, they need to do some major plot revisions. Like have the husband hero hire a nanny so he can spend more time romancing his loving wife or go deer hunting. There's nothing like a tree stand to make a man feel like a real hero.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.