It’s been nearly a week now since Father’s Day was celebrated here and in many places around the world (except Down Under where it takes place on 7 September, and a few others on 19 March).
Once again, we found ourselves in the limelight last week. By ‘we’, I’m not talking about fathers everywhere, though the truth is fathers everywhere don’t get much attention on Father’s Day. Especially when you compare it to the celebrations surrounding Mother’s Day. So yeah, part of me thinks we should get more limelight, more attention.
By “we”, I’m talking about The Ordinary Dad.
That’s the community of mostly stay-at-home dads that I’ve been talking about regularly in my blog. We’ve been growing in prominence through word of mouth and also via mass and social media annually around Father’s Day. It’s been this way since our inaugural meeting in March 2023.
We’ve been featured in different print, broadcast and online platforms. Various of us have been interviewed, quoted and have spoken up for fathers who desire to play bigger roles in their children’s lives.
Now that the media circus has settled, the work of fathering continues. And the hum drum of daily life right along with it.
And it makes me wonder….
…What’s Father’s Day Really About? What’s Any “Day” About?
Is Father’s Day just a day for families to go out for a meal to commemorate that special man in our lives? Or to go to the men’s section of the local department store to buy our dad socks, underwear or a tie?
Really what is the point of Father’s Day? I ask myself this question each year. And each year I come away nary the wiser.
Truth be told that this day could past on just like any other. As all days do, if you think about it.
What often doesn’t get past on though is the reality that once you’re a dad, you’ll always be one. It’s a lifetime kinda deal, not just a day’s work. Which is why you always hear schools reminding parents that their active involvement in their children’s lives are vital for schools to do their work well. Teachers need the support of parents on the home front in ways I would argue trump the needs of parents for teachers’ support on the school front.
For surely it should be parents who know their kids better than the teachers do, right? (The reverse would signal something’s seriously off at home!)
Unfortunately, this vital role often gets overlooked. Especially among busy full-time working parents who are all too happy to drop their kids off at school so they can return to the sane, predictable world of work.
So what’s a day like Father’s Day (or, for that matter, any celebratory day on the calendar) but a reminder that parenting is never done, but it’s so often overlooked in our daily grind that every so often, we should pause and celebrate it.
For then we will remember that…
…Raising kids is the most unpredictable thing in the world!
Just as no two humans are exactly the same, no two kids are either. What works in parenting with one kid may not work for another kid. What worked today with all your kids may fail the very next day! Ask any father or mother who has at least two kids and this is the universal response you will get!
Unlike in the corporate world where you can typically scale up an undertaking, successfully replicating it elsewhere, that doesn’t work when it comes to raising kids.
If I had a nickel for every time our careful planning for the day for activities with our kids goes awry in these last 16 years as parents, my wife and I would have enough of a nest egg to retire comfortably now!
Parenting’s arguably one of the most unpredictable things one could ever do in the world. And it’s for a lifetime too!
So even as the dust has settled post Father’s Day now, I can tell you confidently that the sun’s yet to set on my parenting journey, and the journey of every father in my father’s community.
Which also makes this one of the best adventures one could ever hope for! Not a deep ocean dive, or a trip to the moon. If anyone truly wants to experience a lifetime of adventures this side of heaven, I have just one tip.
Be a father (or mother)!
