Father’s Day

I thought I was going to write a piece saying that, although I used to hate Father’s Day, things have changed now that I’m a father. Part of me hates all the Days – Christmas Day, Easter Day, Halloween – because they tend to suck money out of you and make you miserable. And they’re getting worse. There was a time, not even very long ago, when an Easter card was a nice thing – a pleasant bonus. Now, for some people, the absence of an Easter card is a misdemeanour. Easter, I can see, is moving up the scale. Easter is becoming disruptive and expensive, like Christmas. Mother’s Day is getting like the old Easter. And Father’s Day is creeping towards the old Mother’s Day. Once it was a phone call; now it’s a phone call and a card. Soon it will be a gift, a visit, the cause of a million screaming rows on the motorway.

Thinking this, I told myself to calm down. Soon, I might be on the receiving end of the cards and the gifts. And Father’s Day, I reasoned, is still the least noxious of the Days. But then I went into Woolworth on Cliffe High Street. And there they were – the generic gifts, the tubs of dad-themed stuff, like enormous Yorkie bars. Jesus! Here it comes, I thought: another ruined Sunday. So what will I tell my son, when he gets older? Give your Dad a call. But not just because it’s Father’s Day. I can think of a hundred better reasons. WL