Father’s Day never really meant much to me, especially when I was a child. I have a few memories of my dad, none of them very good. My dad was an Absent Father, which is the politically correct term for not wanting to have Any-Fucking-Thing to do with his offspring. One time when I was six or seven, I was eating a hamburger and I put ketchup on it, and I licked the extra ketchup off the cover. Yes that is gross but I was six. My dad decided to teach me a lesson so he spit on my plate and told me to lick that.* Did I mention that I was six!
*I’m not looking for sympathy because everyone has their own ghost stories. And I have no reason to believe my ghost stories are worse than yours. We live in a fucked-up world, this is just for context.
One year I did give my mom a Father’s Day Card as a statement that she filled in the at that position but otherwise, it has always just been something in the background. I’d see a Father’s Day commercial for a sale on tools or tires and I’d think I have to buy a power drill anyway, why not save some dough.
In fact the biggest significant Father’s Day has had until recently was when friends had to decline invitations to get together that weekend because of Father’s Day. Even though they were the one with the father, they seemed to act like they were going to the dentist instead of spending time with a loved one.
As Walter Michka of Open Heart Blog points out:
“My Facebook news feed fills up around this time with posts about fathers. Grainy photos a skinny, smiling young men. Maybe they’re in uniform or holding the person who posted it when they were a baby. The captions with the pictures wax poetic about how these men were their rock, their inspiration. How their dad read Little Women to them at bedtime. How they miss their dads now that they’re gone and on and on.” —Thinking of Dad on Father’s Day
So after four decades of never really giving a Flying Fuck about Father’s Day, I suddenly am a dad and the hallmark holiday is supposed to mean something. Confession: Last year I bought myself a 65″ Smart TV that was dirt cheap on a Pre-Father’s Day sale.
So while I am now legitimately part of the Dad’s Club, I am still more concerned with how to raise socially-conscious children with beautiful manners and high self-esteem while Keeping Up with the Kardashians is still out there. Or at the very least, be the kind of father my kids don’t eventually grow up to hate.
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