Who's your daddy? The guy who cheers you on at your soccer games? The man who helps you with your homework? Your mother’s boyfriend? The sperm donor? TV doesn’t have just one answer anymore.

No way does Rory Gilmore need a dad to make her single parent home any sweeter. She’s got a kick-ass mom who can be her best friend one minute, watching classic movies and eating junk food, and seamlessly switching to the super cool, understanding, and supportive parent the next. At first glance this family unit of two is a perfect little insulated world. But upon closer inspection, Rory actually has three major and influential father figures in her life, each one appealing to a different aspect of her character. In fact, they take up so much room in her life that her existence is not that different than it would have been if she had grown up with a father in the home.

I have thought long and hard, done many internet searches, and endlessly harassed my boyfriend and co-workers to help me think of appropriate pop culture analogies for each of these men and their unique roles. I am now convinced they do not exist. These three fathers do not fill any typical television or movie father roles. They do not provide comic relief. They do not own cars that the child covets. They do not keep beer in the fridge that the child and her friends steal and get drunk on. In fact, most television and  …