Father’s Day, For Real This Time

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Okay, now I’m ready to talk about Father’s Day.

I hope all you fathers had a great day with your families; I know I did. I also hope that those of you who aren’t fathers but who have fathers at least gave your fathers a call. And if you don’t have a father, that’s okay. Father’s Day doesn’t invalidate you.

And the same goes for if you’re a mother. Father’s Day isn’t about you! Nobody goes around on Mother’s Day talking about how fathers are the real superheroes. Yet every Father’s Day, the reverse happens. It’s gross and annoying. Stop it.

Fathers have been devalued enough. In our culture–our movies, TV shows, advertisements, and children’s cartoons–dad is always a big, fat, stupid, lazy slob who has to always be bailed out by his long-suffering, snarky wife, and maybe also his kids (the daughters usually; sons are portrayed as mini-dads). We have two or three generations of kids raised on viewing fathers in this way.

And don’t tell me I’m being dramatic. Culture matters and has an influence on behaviors.

We see the results of this by looking at American society as a whole. Entire groups of people of all types are suffering from the dearth of good, strong, positive fathers or at least father figures. Our atomized society deliberately devalues and discourages men from being mentors to young boys and teenagers because of “They’re probably pedos/All men are rapists” hysteria. Our low levels of social trust don’t help either.

Anyway, Father’s Day is a time to celebrate the fathers that are their for their children, and for their wives. I am fortunate enough to have a father more than worthy of the title, and I consider him one of the biggest positive influences in my life, certainly a model for how to be a father to my own children. I am also blessed to have two fantastic grandfathers (one sadly no longer with us) and a father-in-law who has taken me in as his own son. 

Men need other men to learn from. Sorry moms–you have an important role in the development of men and women, but it’s a different role. And if anything, I think children in America these days have a bit too much mothering and not enough fathering.

Society, government, even our churches–there’s a distinct lack of masculinity in these institutions. It’s good to be nurtured and coddled and protected, but it’s also good to be encouraged to take risks and stand up for what is right. Duty, honor, doing the right thing even at great personal cost–these are things that fathers instill in men–and women!–and not mothers. Just as there are wonderful things mothers can do that fathers cannot, it goes the same the other way.

Men and women, mothers and fathers, are natural allies and not enemies. Two halves of a beautiful whole. This pitting of women against men, and men’s capitulation, is sick and disgusting and needs to end yesterday.

I talk a lot about fathers and sons, but fathers have a vital role in raising daughters as well. There is the protective element, of course, a different kind of protection than that offered by a mother, but there is also the modeling element. The kind of man a father is tends to be the kind of man a daughter seeks out. This is a fantastic responsibility and one that cannot be taken lightly.

I know that most fathers out there do a bang-up job, the best they can, and to you, I salute you. We need men to stop being lame, quit bitching about everything, and get busy with the job helping our wives and other women in our lives preserve some remnant of a remnant of our rapidly crumbling society and rebuild it back stronger–and more virtuous–than ever.

This is Part I of the day’s posts. Part II will be more fun, I promise.