A ‘Good Man Day’ should replace current holiday

I have long been uncomfortable with Father’s Day.

It is not that I do not want to celebrate fathers. There is something special about fathers. There is something special about girls and their daddies. And there are plenty of good dads out there.

But a celebration of fathers reminds many people of a great hole in their lives. I know lots of kids who come from divorced homes and have little or no contact with their fathers. I know other kids who have remarried parents, and their biological dads may not get a chance to be a part of their lives. I have a friend whose son lives across the country – also due to a divorce – and he aches every day because he is missing his son’s life.

I know plenty of adults who are angry at their fathers.

Fathers make mistakes. Sometimes fathers hurt their children on purpose, while other fathers hurt their children by accident. Sometimes fathers are absent because their work requires lots of travel or deployments. Often, dads make bad choices and those choices haunt their relationships. Some fathers did a poor job of being fathers.

I want to celebrate fathers, but I also recognize that some dads have made a mess of their relationships, and some kids do not have dads, and still other dads are unable to be proper fathers.

It seems like it may be time to rethink Father’s Day.

Just calling the celebration “Father’s Day” leaves all kinds of relationships out, brings up some hurtful memories and does not really speak to the realities of life. My own relationship with my father, for example, cannot be described by a Hallmark card, and my relationship with my own kids is different from other relationships.

What shall we call a new, re-thought Father’s Day? 

To answer this question, first we must clarify what we are celebrating. We are not celebrating the times that dads failed, the times they yelled too much or the times they were not present, even when they should have been. We are not celebrating the “epic-dad-failures,” nor moments of abuse or violence.

Rather, we are celebrating when a man cared, was present, listened more than he spoke, taught us something important or talked us out of making a serious mistake. 

Obviously, we cannot call this new holiday “man who cared, was present, listened, taught, and gave good counsel” day. We need something shorter and snappier. We need to keep the word “man” in the title because men play critical roles in the lives of children.

How about if we call Sunday, June 16, “Good Man” day?