Today is Fathers Day. The 100th Fathers Day, actually. I am a father, therefore it is my day. And what makes a father? Well, someone who can get a woman pregnant, for a start (thanks to Alas Smith and Jones for that one).
Fathers Day has never really been a big deal for me. My own dad was never around (we can talk about that later) so I never had to buy the card. In fact, I never really experienced the child end of Fathers Day until I got into serious relationships, whence I was then co-opted into the occasion by my other half.
Fathers Day is a real day, unlike Grandparents’ Day or Secretary’s Day or Step-parent’s Day.
It was created by Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington. After listening to a church sermon in 1909 about Mother’s Day, Dodd felt strongly that fatherhood needed recognition too. She wanted a day to honour dads like her own, William Smart, a Civil War veteran who was left to raise his family alone when his wife died giving birth to their sixth child when Sonora was 16 years old.
But my earliest memories of Fathers Day are of horrible child-produced cards and of kind deeds.
The mantra in the run up to today however has been of “the perfect gift for Fathers Day!”, “the album every Dad wants on Fathers Day” or even: “the perfect fragrance for Dad!” — FRAGRANCE!? Only poofs use fragrance! Real men use aftershave, especially when it hurts to do so!
My kids know I would disown them if they were dumb enough to fall into the trap of buying me something for Fathers Day. The same goes for Mothers Day (and I have the permission of the mother of my children to say that).
The sad fact is that big corporations from Pizza Hut to Hugo Boss now see previously innocuous festivals such as Mothers and Fathers Day or even Valentines Day as useful money spinners. They have convinced an increasingly-secular consumerist society that the only way to show someone that you value them is to spend large amounts of hard cash buying something they probably don’t want or need anyway.
Bizarrely, in the case of Mothers and Fathers Day — now that there are laws against child labour — the recipient necessarily must fund the gift they receive.
And besides, my kids never really buy me anything I want.
To all other dads out there, I wish you a happy Fathers Day, and I implore you to teach your offspring that the best things in life are free (or their cost is measured in foregoing a favourite TV programme to spend the making stuff from old wallpaper and sticky tape).
Related articles
- Father’s Day marks 100th anniversary (cbc.ca)
- Open Thread: The History of Father’s Day (newsbusters.org)
- Happy Father’s Day (seattlepi.com)
- Dads Rock (timesunion.com)
