If this matters, its effect in society is going depend on the number of fathers who behave like this. If that number were much smaller 100 years ago then it is now, etc.
Based on my own familial experience (hard to get many others), my grandfather was not an aberration. Actually, if we look at cultural products of various times (songs, poems, etc), it seems quite clear that it was expected that a good father would be playful and intimate with his children.
