Let’s face it – holidays are awesome. Even if the holidays do not coincide with our identities or religious beliefs, they are justifications for having fun. During the school year, we enjoy holidays such as Cinco de Mayo and St. Patrick’s Day. Everyone pretends they’re Mexican on Cinco de Mayo, and everyone pretends they’re Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. These holidays act as excellent excuses for going out on weeknights, drinking with your closest friends and missing important classes the next day. Most holidays occur during the academic year, but one summer holiday doesn’t receive the attention it deserves – Father’s Day.
On this year’s Father’s Day I was stuck working at a festival for 10 hours, so I barely got to see my dad. Before I left for work at 9:30 a.m., I shook my father’s hand, said “Happy Father’s Day” and that was about it. I worked all day and did not really think much of the occasion at all. When I went on break at work, I started browsing through the plethora of Father’s Day tweets on my smartphone, one of which really caught my attention. The tweet read, “The biggest problem with us kids today is that we don’t just say thank you to our dads on a regular basis for just being there.” Among the hundreds of Father’s Day statements flying around the Twitterverse, this one really got me thinking.
For many students – including myself – fathers are the breadwinners. Fathers’ main goal is providing their children with better lives than they ever had growing up. Fathers work from dawn until dusk to feed their kids, buy them clothes, put braces on their teeth and send them to expensive colleges. Fathers hope this allows their kids to get good jobs and ultimately become providers for their own families. While most mothers act as caregivers and sources of emotional support, most fathers act as advice-givers. As children grow up and learn more about the world around them, their fathers teach them how to act like adults and develop a sense of professionalism, because fathers have extensive experience in what us rising adults tend to call “the real world.”
The disappointing truth is that society appreciates festive holidays more than Father’s Day. Of course holidays such as Christmas and the Fourth of July deserve celebration and appreciation, but it seems like Father’s Day does not rank anywhere close to those two. Most people do not sit back and realize how important fathers really are, to both families and our culture. To many children, fathers are examples of perfection. A daughter sees her father as the perfect man – the first man she adores – whereas a son sees his father as the man he aspires to become. In a cultural sense, fathers serve as a cohesive presence that strengthens family bonds and facilitates the healthy development of their children so they become contributing members of society.
Essentially, our fathers seem to do everything for us. They work their butts off to raise and support us, although we ignorantly think we do it all by ourselves. Fathers are just as important in our lives as our religious beliefs or national identity, so Father’s Day should be equally important as the other holidays on the calendar. One day a year to truly praise the guy who brought us here – that’s not too bad, right?
Alex McGuire is a junior journalism major. He can be reached at opinion@umdbk.com.
