Happy Fathers' Day?

Perhaps I am wrong, but I tend to assume that the type of thing you say to a dad on fathers' day is "ya done good!" or "you are a model to me of good stuff," not (in Calvinesque fashion) "your dad ratings have fallen to record lows." I realize the phrase "fathers' day" may be somewhat ambiguous: "veterans' day" means we honor veterans, but "duck season" means we shoot them. Shoot ducks, I mean, not veterans. Unless we're al qaeda. The point is, "fathers' day" could mean that we're supposed to say fathers are peachy keen, or that we declare "National Hunting Day" on them because they pose a grave threat to humanity and must be stopped no matter what the cost.

I point to this ambiguity in fathers' day as a possible explanation for the following fathers' day cards I found and copied down:

1."Whenever I'm in a tight spot and can't figure out what to do, I always ask myself this question: 'What would Dad do if HE were in this situation?" (Turn over page.) "And then I go watch television."

2."Dad, I feel I've inherited a lot of your qualities, and I just wanted to let you know ... (turn over page.) "I don't hold it against you."

These are "funny," surprisingly original cards, because right when you think they're about to compliment a father, they insult him. "You think I'm going to say something nice, tee hee hee, but instead I'm going to gnaw on your meager remains!" I don't mean to overstress this, but to put it in perspective, imagine giving the following as a mother's day card: "Mom, I want to thank you for all the time you've spent to meet my needs, day in and day out ..." (turn over page.) "like driving me to the day care center!" Ho ho ho, you think it's going to thank mom for all the time she's spent serving her kids despite being a working mom, but really it's suggesting she's abandoned them! How devilishly clever!

Now, I'm not too keen on gender double-standards: Samuel Johnson (writer of the first English dictionary, and person who had the aptly titled "the age of Johnson" named after him) actually argued it was worse for a wife to have adultery than the man. (Apparently, the cohesion of eighteenth century society depended upon knowing that inheritance was not passed down to illegitimate kids; so, if a wife is adulterous, you can't be sure whose kid the inheritance is actually going to, and societal stability collapses. If it is only a husband being adulterous, society can move merrily along.) Even if men may often get the better side of gender double-standards, they don't do too well on the mothers'/fathers' day front. Humorous "Mothers' day" cards may be self-deprecating on the part of the sender, but not, to the best of my knowledge, mother-deprecating. Presumably, there are some fairly bad mothers out there, but we don't usually send them cards announcing the fact. Sure, dads make mistakes, but maybe we can just enumerate them the other 364 days of the year. Now, consider this next card I found:

3."All the other father's day cards I saw were about stuff that didn't seem like you: hunting, fishing, sports, monkeys on the toilet..." (turn over the page) "OK, maybe that last one."

Admittedly, I think monkeys on the toilet are funny. And if someone came up to me and said, "I took this picture of a monkey on a toilet and thought you'd like it," I might be touched. But the card implies that the monkeys on the toilet reminds the sender of his/her dad because 1.his dad spends time on the toilet and 2.he is hairy. Now, I get that dads might need to be told to spend less time watching the TV. TV is a choice. But you know (and this may come as a surprise) dads often need to use the toilet, and some of them have little control over the quantity of hair on their body. And it's not like he's hanging out at a bar. If he is taking a rather long time sealed off in that odoriferous room, he's probably doing something innocuous or possibly even constructive, like expanding his mind by reading The Bathroom Reader or disposing of dangerous toxins. Given the large number of things for dads to feel self-conscious about, the duration of their life spent in the bathroom seems low on the list of priorities. After all, the bathroom is supposed to be a place of safety and security. The bathroom is "base" in the freeze tag game of life. It is not a place to accuse someone of being monkey-like.

I think the impulse to send a toilet abuse card or a television junkie card may arise because people don't know what kind of card to get a dad. Pull out a picture of your dad: does he seem to be saying, "Please oh please give me something sickly sentimental?" Probably not. But I don't know that he's saying, "Bring on the insults! BRING 'EM ON!" either. It seems like there should be a happy medium between drippiness and subtle put-downs.

In this regard, I'm reminded of Shaunti Feldhahn's For Women Only and Emerson Eggerichs's Love and Respect. Both books argue that, while women fundamentally need to hear the message, "I love you," men need to hear, "I respect you." The books suggest that even if culture has accepted that women need to hear that they are unconditionally loved, men need to hear that they are unconditionally respected--lack of respect makes them feel like failures and shut down, while unconditional respect makes them excited and want to be worthy of respect. So, perhaps the reason we don't get the "come hither; bring drippiness" look from our dads is that they instead need to hear that they're respected--which isn't a message conveyed by the three fathers' day cards above. Respect for dads is not very characteristic of society in general; how many truly admirable dads are there on TV? (Veronica Mars is a remarkable exception to this rule: Veronica's dad is one of the most incredible fathers I've seen.) So this fathers' day, do something different: tell your dad you respect him. Or, if you're a father, try to exude less of the "sentimentality is gross" look and more of the "respect is keen" look.