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Fathers and sons: On Father’s Day, it’s complicated

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My Irishman father used to say, “A father is a father not by blood but by deed, it’s not who you are but what you do that makes you a father.” Being that my dad pretty much had a lyrical saying for every situation, I tended to discount the significance of that particular one. It was not until I became a dad myself many years later that I came to understand the wisdom of his words. Putting the needs and aspirations of your children ahead of your own indulgences is what makes a father worthy of a celebration day.

Certainly, not all fathers are deserving of the recognition of a Father’s Day, which makes the day itself a quandary for children of insufficient parents.

Thus, for kids who were treated either indifferently or poorly, they must choose to put on pretense or separate themselves from the celebration altogether.

Father’s Day means different things in different countries with unusual customs and rituals. Some Americans tend to dismiss the day as a commercial tradition, when in reality the holiday prompts an examination and appreciation of our fathers or father figures.

The genesis of Father’s Day in the United States took many years to come to fruition. Nevertheless, our country led the way in the world’s awareness of why the holiday should exist. While some countries have coupled a religious holiday with Father’s Day, our current recognition stands alone in recollection of our dads.

Of course, throughout history and especially political history there have been many representations of the fragility of the father/son or father/daughter relationship. Also, criminal history has recorded many instances of parent-child fissures that have manifested into acts of infamy.

Notable public mal-occurrences aside, Father’s Day should not be just a required go-through-the-motions deliverance of a card and a tie. The day should be reflective, introspective, and appreciative of the man who an individual perceives in one’s heart is his or her father.

I have always considered myself fortunate that my father figure was also my father. Some of my friends, many who lost their dads in war, had to seek uncles, priests, and/or their mom’s current love interest for someone to honor on Father’s Day. The constant for these fatherless kids was that they always sought someone to teach them lasting principles, and someone to guide them on how to become fathers themselves someday, and someone to tell them the hokey parables and adages like my father the Irishman told me.

The idea of Father’s Day in our country was hatched in the early twentieth century. After regional celebrations emerged in Washington State and Chicago, Ill., President Woodrow Wilson took notice, and in conjunction with other Democrats in the legislative branch proposed a bill to make the third Sunday in June the Father’s Day holiday. The proposal was defeated in committee by those who thought the idea too commercially driven. As Mother’s Day was already recognized years before, the father/child relationship along with the commerce the celebration spawned were thought to be important to the social fabric of America and to retailers’ cash registers as well. Alas, there was no luck at that juncture.

The holiday idea was revisited with President Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s. He favored a celebration, but paused short of endorsing a formal holiday. Further, President Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s favored the idea of a national holiday, but could not muster the necessary support in Congress. A decade later, Lyndon Johnson was the first president to make an official proclamation that the third Sunday in June should be Father’s Day.

Finally, after 60 years of effort, during the tenure of President Richard Nixon in the early 1970s, a permanent national holiday was established.

Different nations decided to craft their own unique versions of Father’s Day.

Prior to 1991, the Soviet Union referred to their Dad’s Day as “Defender of the Fatherland Day.” Children were meant to honor their fathers’ defense of the Soviet Union either in uniform or by being a reliable cog in the socialist machine. Local celebrations in which any father was supposed to be addressed as “Nation’s Father” by anyone, not just their kids, were held with solemn regard. For some unknown reason, a customary special vegetable soup was served in meeting places to “fathers” first and then to those honoring them.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation changed the holiday’s name to “Men’s Day.” Local gatherings were highlighted by a sort of procession of military veterans and local political leaders whose merits to the nation and their families were recognized.

In South Korea (the Republic of Korea), “Parents Day” combines Mother’s Day and Father’s Day in a ceremonial honoring of parents through costuming and dance with vibrant displays of appreciation of fathers and mothers.

In the heavily Catholic countries of Spain and Portugal, Father’s Day is combined with the Catholic holiday “Feast of Saint Joseph” on March 19.

More so than a family’s father, the local parish priest is celebrated for he is thought to be the presumably more important “spiritual father.” A banquet in favor of the local pastor with dishes brought by the loyal parishioners includes many devotees. Fathers in families are recognized marginally by comparison.

In Sudan (currently Sudan and South Sudan), fathers are celebrated in their version of Father’s Day when they adorn tribal dress in a festival of dance in which they beat sticks against their chest. Their sons beat drums of appreciation during the display.

Although no drums were apparently used when the extreme opposite of honoring one’s father took place in parent/child history in 1892. Although acquitted, New Englander Lizzie Borden became part of folklore when she took a hatchet to her father and stepmother. Similarly in 1989, Lyle and Erik Menendez expressed with a shotgun their opinion of their mother and father. No paternal accolades arose during the Menendez brothers’ two trials (in the first trial the jury deadlocked). Years later in prison, Erik stated his father “wasn’t all that bad.”

Similarly, a father who felt his son had not followed his sage advice was the Rev. Marvin Gaye Sr. Believing his son had dishonored him with his “fast” and “secular” lifestyle, Marvin Sr. reasoned that his wayward son needed to be stopped permanently. So, Senior shot his famous singer son Marvin Jr. dead.

Obviously, I have been writing about two ends of a spectrum. Whereas, the degree of honor one feels compelled to bestow upon a father or father figure is often somewhere more akin to a median than to the extremes of utter devotion or oppositely patricide or prolicide.

This median I write about is apparent in our politics. For instance, George W. Bush (our 43rd president) was repeatedly referred to as the “Black Sheep” by his father. The fact that “41” (President George H. W. Bush) had discounted “43” during his turbulent youth enhanced the younger George’s need for validation from dad. Political authors have professed that the overriding reason for our country’s costly adventure into Iraq had less to do with “weapons of mass destruction” and more to do with W’s want of recognition and approbation from dear old dad.

Equally, John Quincy Adams, according to historian David McCullough, had a love/hate relationship with the second president and his father, John Adams. Absent for a great portion of his childhood, the few encounters John Quincy had with his father during his formative years were strained and uncomfortable. As our sixth president, John Quincy was driven by a quest to prove his worth to his uncomplimentary father. His efforts backfired in what turned out to be an unproductive presidency.

As I have shown, Father’s Day is more than a windfall for greeting card companies and tie makers in our nation. Additionally, the day is more than an opportunity for ritual celebration and dance in other countries. Father’s Day is an opportunity to examine the complexities of fatherhood and the relationship that one has or had with one’s father or father figure. Dads are not perfect. Sometimes they are not defined by blood, but by deed. Gee, I thought I heard that somewhere!

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