No Respect for Fathers

One little boy defined Father’s Day like this: “Father’s Day is just like Mother’s Day, only you don’t spend as much on a present.” Come on, isn’t that true? Father’s Day is kind of the “left-over” holiday. It’s the one that we do just so the guys won’t feel bad. In fact Garrison Keillor writes that fatherhood is a big misunderstanding

We were young swashbuckling guys riding around in cool cars on a hot summer night and we pulled into the A&W for a root beer and these girls walked over in their little white summer dresses and the next thing we knew we had a house and a lawn and a teenager glowering at us and muttering something about us not understanding him. He thinks he's misunderstood -- hey, how about us? Look at Father's Day. All year long, we dads look forward to Our Day and think, "Well, maybe this year there will be a big parade. A dads drill team, twirling rakes. A float with the Boston Pops on it." And then, nothing. No fireworks, no music. A few people murmur, "Happy Father's Day," and that's it. It's about as festive as Arbor Day or National Pickle Week.

One Dad writes that, during his freshman year, his son Steve couldn’t get home for Christmas. So Steve sent him a set of inexpensive cuff links and a note reading: “Dear Dad, This is not much, but it’s all you could afford.”

The Illinois Bell Telephone Co. reports that the volume of long distance calls made on Father’s Day is growing faster than the number on Mother’s Day. Now, that might make you think that I’m wrong about this. Maybe Father’s Day is just as important as Mother’s Day. You might think that until you hear the rest of the story: They said that the volume of calls made on Father’s Day was growing faster than the volume made on Mother’s Day, but the company went on to apologize that they took so long in compiling the statistics because the extra billing of calls to fathers slowed things down. Most of the calls were “collect.”