Golf, Fish, Pigeonhole: A word against Father's Day

By Bridget Pelkie

del.ico.us | digg it! | reddit!

print | email | 0 Comments

A customer in the card shop where I work took a step back from the Father's Day wall in disgust. "My dad doesn't know how to fix anything!" she said, referring to the preponderance of tool-related greeting cards celebrating the holiday. "He doesn't golf, doesn't fish," she added, negating about 80 percent of the rest of her options. Eventually, she left the store empty-handed, presumably to find a place that sold something fitting her reality.

Odds are, she'll have a hard time finding it.

Father's Day is stuck in a 1950s ideal of fatherhood: Dad's the breadwinner, who wants nothing more after a long week at the office than to spend a Saturday morning at the links before grilling up dinner for his wife and 2.5 children. Never mind the fact that plenty of Americans don't have a parental figure fitting that description.

Mother's Day is, if anything, worse. It's about makeup and shoe-shopping and getting a day off from housework, characteristics that many, but not nearly all, mothers share. My store even sells a card depicting a woman collapsed on a couch while her husband and child look on in horror. "Oh no!" the cringe-worthy caption reads. "The server's down!"

The drastic difference between the two holidays is further emphasized even more clearly in gift recommendations offered on television and on store shelves. Can't think of what to get Mom? Stop by your local florist. Looking for ideas for Dad? Well, guys love gadgets. There are certain things only mommies do, and other things that daddies do, and never the twain shall meet.

Maybe these images still reflect a majority of American families' lives, or maybe they cut close enough to the truth that shoppers will recognize something of their parent in the paper portrayal. Or maybe people don't realize the subtle message these holidays send, that all good families fit into one category and if yours doesn't, you're shit outta luck.

Is this really what Mother's and Father's Days are about—reinforcing outdated gender stereotypes? Teaching each new generation of daughters and sons the appropriate and socially acceptable activities for their parents, which only come in the form of one woman and one man? If so, I'll go without, thank you very much.

Mother's Day and Father's Day were created in a different era, a time when the mainstream family categorized itself in only one way. But this is the 21st century. Not only do we have more variety in our nuclear families, we accept more variety in our gender roles. Moms like technology and dads stay home to raise kids.

Is it wrong to set aside a day to honor the person or people who raised you? Of course not. But why not honor them as individuals, not the way marketing says you should? You'll be turning another commercialized holiday into the meaningful experience it was intended to be. And your parents, whoever they are, will thank you.