If you put the time frame and the male dominated culture in which Vito lived, he was a warm and caring husband and father.
His gesture of spending his last cent on a pear for his wife is one of the most tender in the trilogy. We also see him sitting on the stoop with his wife and kids, and we know he takes them all to Sicily for a vacation (of course he did have other business to attend to). Throughout there a number of foreshadowings which show that Michael was his favorite.