Pick up your shoes and other fatherly advice: Father’s Day is ... just the opposite
By Kent McDill
There are things I find endlessly amusing: The Mel Brooks movie “Spaceballs” Dave Barry. Discussing the beginning of time with my high school daughter Haley. Watching my middle school son Kyle dance.
Add “Father’s Day’’ to that list.
I’m not sure what Father’s Day is supposed to be. Is it a day to celebrate fatherhood? Is it a day for the children to say “Thank you”? Is it a day to get Dad out of the house so Mom can clean out the garage the way she wants?
In our house, it’s basically just like last Thursday, except I know we will grill dinner. Meaning I will grill dinner.
If I sound bitter about Father’s Day, I don’t mean to. The truth of the matter is that, for some of us — the fathers who get it and take time every day to celebrate inwardly the beauty and uniqueness of his children — every day is Father’s Day.
But the holiday called Father’s Day, if done correctly, should be just like Labor Day is for the hardworking people of America. Labor Day is supposed to be a day of rest, a day without labor. Father’s Day should be a day when men are given a day off from being fathers.
It’s probably named wrong.
But I don’t want to be away from my kids on Father’s Day. If anything, I want to be with them more, but I want to do the things with them that I want to do, rather than what they want to do.
You know what would be a really great Father’s Day for me? Getting all four of my kids to go for a walk through the nearby forest preserve with me, without complaining about bugs, or each other.
There are occasions, rare ones, when my kids get involved in an activity together. Recently, after school on that first really nice day of spring this year, all four of my kids got home and played basketball together, even Haley, who is afraid of basketballs and volleyballs and baseballs. Let me sit on the front porch and watch them play basketball together; that’s a nice Father’s Day.
My kids are getting old enough that I can foresee a day when they won’t be around anymore. Kyle, my youngest, is six years away from heading off to college. If Father’s Day is supposed to be a day when you don’t do any fathering, will I be celebrating Father’s Day every day in a few years? I don’t think so.
It’s funny to me, too, that people stress over getting gifts for dads on Father’s Day. We could not be any easier to buy for! You want stress? Watch me try to pick out a gift for my wife that she won’t immediately need the gift receipt for.
Besides my kids, I have four things that matter to me, that might be called hobbies if I had time for hobbies. They are soccer, Jimmy Buffett, tennis and anything Disney. A T-shirt saluting any of those things would suffice as a great gift.
What I get is clothes my wife hopes I will wear instead of the stuff in my closet which I have owned since the day we met. Or peanut M&M’s.
(Actually, I want to offer kudos to my wife Janice for her attempts to keep me up to date electronically. A few years ago she got me an iPod, and a couple of years ago I got an electronic reader. What I didn’t get was the time to use and enjoy either of those items. Some day, though.)
So if I’m not going to get a Margaritaville key chain or new Mickey Mouse hat for Father’s Day, let me tell you the other things I would want as a gift that day:
I would like to go see Kyle or Lindsey score in a soccer game, or watch Dan, my goalkeeper, get a shutout in a game.
I’d like to see Haley go a day without stressing about getting into the college of her choice.
I’d like to hear the kids laughing out on the trampoline.
I’d like to have them invite me out for a bike ride.
I’d like for them to go an entire day without arguing over whatever it is they argue over every day.
There. That’s my Father’s Day gift list.
But I will say “thank you’’ when I get my peanut M&M’s.
Ÿ Kent McDill is a freelance writer. He and his wife, Janice, have four children, Haley, Dan, Lindsey and Kyle.