Don’t Be Such A Cry Baby, Papa

It’s no secret that Mothers’ Day outshines any other day celebrations so far; not International Water Day, International Day of the Child, St. Valentine’s Day and the so many other days set aside to celebrate significant issues, moments and people comes close. I never really thought anything about this state of affairs, believing it was quite understandable that in the business of parenting, mothers were more likely to receive recognition from their children and society generally in my parts. Perhaps that’s the bias of the woman and mother that I am.

But some men have taken the matter rather personally. I overheard a discussion on radio by some males about the big bang Fathers’ Day celebrations they intend setting off yearly to “match” Mothers’ Day celebrations. They plan to make sure the day is given as much and more visibility and prominence as that accorded the day of mothers. The conversation reflected the displeasure of the men about the relatively low key celebration of Fathers’ Day as compared to that of Mothers’ Day.

During the “call in” segment of the radio program as has become customary on our media landscape, many males called in. In fact only males called in; all of them quite peeved about what they perceived to be “bad treatment” meted out to them by the faceless one and undoubtedly with the unspoken connivance of mothers.

One caller in his angst suggested “after all the men can celebrate their day better because the money that goes into mother’s day celebrations comes from men”. Another suggested, “Women can’t even have children if we men don’t go to them”. Sheesh, I can’t even bring myself to be upset with this.

Okay, here goes.

Kiddo: Dear Daddy, Papa, Poppy, Da, you know you are the best thing that ever happened to me. You took care of all (?) my needs. I am so grateful and I love you, oh so terribly much. I could never show you how much......There! Feel better? What’s up with this turf war anyway, hm?

Dads are awesome. Mine was, well much of the time! I guess the only trouble is there just aren’t as many awesome dads as there are moms; for now anyway. I can only urge fathers to close the gap where it exists.