Would Father’s Day be different if we called it “Dad’s Day” instead?
Today is Father’s Day in the US. It’s a minor holiday compared to Mother’s Day.*
Viewed from the beginning of the parenting journey,** this makes sense. The mother carries what in any other context would be considered a parasite for nine long months. Doing this transforms her body and brain in uncomfortable ways. At the end of the process—in a risky medical procedure that could kill her—she pushes the now-six-to-ten-pound parasite out of the most sensitive parts of her body, whereupon it begins to feed on her, sucking out her life force via two other very sensitive parts of her body for another year. This creature remains dependent for decades thereafter. It makes sense that we honor the woman who went through this harrowing experience with a nice annual brunch for the rest of her life.
The father just got laid. Why does he get a holiday?
But I think we might take Father’s Day more seriously if we called it Dad’s Day.
If you say you’re somebody’s father, it could mean a lot of different things: you could be a sperm donor. You could be a priest. The listener doesn’t get a sense of the relationship parent and child have via the word “father.” But if you say you’re somebody’s dad, then the listener knows that at some point you’ve done the major job that being a dad requires, which is showing up and being ready for something unexpected.
And make breakfast. Make a lot of breakfasts.
Being a dad is all about the middle of the journey. It’s a prosaic exercise in the sense that it’s all messy and improvisational.
There are infinite ways to screw up being a dad. I’ve done most of them. On the other side, your dad success metrics are inscrutable at best and contradictory at worst. If your kid sticks around the house, does that mean the kid has a loving family’s warm embrace or that you should have worked harder to have the kid make friends? If your kid calls you with a question, does that mean you have a trusting relationship or that the kid is too dependent and lacks confidence?
Father’s Day is an important success metric because it’s a simple test: if your faraway kids call you or text you, if your in-the-house kids hug you or make you a card, then you know you haven’t completely screwed things up. (My night owl daughter already texted me at 8:00am from Los Angeles, a good sign; my son is still asleep.)
I have two wonderful children: Helena is 22. William is 18.
Being a dad to a girl is different than being a dad to a boy.
When La Profesora was pregnant with Helena, and after we learned her gender, a heartless colleague said, “just think about every shitty thing you’ve ever done to a woman and realize that some bastard is going to do that to your little girl.” I hadn’t even been that big a jerk to women in my single days (or I’m deluded), and the blood still drained from my face.
My wife’s friend Seth once said that his major role as the dad of a girl was being a source of self-esteem for his daughter, which is the smartest thing anybody has ever said on this subject. You never retire from that job. Being dad to a daughter is also an exercise in teaching her what she might expect from a future partner (if that future partner is a guy), which means that how I treat La Profesora is also what my daughter has been watching all these years.
With William, on top of all the breakfasts, my job is two-fold. First, I need to show him one way of being a good man in the world. This is tricky since I’m not at all confident that I’ve figured it out myself. Second, I need to embrace that he will inevitably be a different kind of man than I am. Have you ever noticed that most of the bad dads in television and movies are bad dads because they have tiny hoops they want their sons to jump through?
If you’re politically progressive, then being a white guy has lost some of its luster over the last few years. It can be hard to root for our team. But I’m raising a rookie member of this team, so the stakes are high to help him figure it out. Lately, instead of telling him what I think he should do, I’ve found myself asking, “So what’s your plan?” (We’re seeing The Flash in IMAX in a few hours… another good sign.)
The unexpected gift of being a dad is emotionally connecting with other dads. Most typical cis-gendered straight guys talk about their jobs, sports, and their kids. I’m not a big sports guy, and my jobs have always been weird (Shakespearean? Editor in Chief? Internet Researcher?). Once I became a dad, I had a new profound thing I could chat with other men about: being dads, which was gratifying.
Helena, William, I’m proud and thrilled to be your dad. Thank you.
To my father, Steve Berens, my father in law, Steve Inman, and to all my dad friends out there who do the job of showing up, ready to improvise…
Happy Dad’s Day, guys.
* Comedian Ali Siddiq has a hilarious riff on how Father’s Day is the 20th most important holiday, which you can see on YouTube.
** It’s worth stating “out loud” that in this column I’m talking about the typical case of two biological parents, a woman and a man. I know that there are many other ways to be parents, and I also know that most of the other ways (adoption, surrogacy, blended families) are harder than the typical biological one. On this topic, though, I can only write from my own experience.
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