Fathering - June 20 2021

 

Fathering

June 20 2021

It's Father's Day.

I'm tempted to sneer

at this manufactured holiday

ginned-up for commerce.

Its slick sentimentality

cajoling us to buy.

Its embrace of the bumbling but well-meaning Dad,

who is white, and middle class

and bad at diapering.

Or is even that an accident,

and today was intended to compensate

the marginalized old man

for May's extravaganza

of motherhood.

I am not a dad.

To judge by my brothers

I might have made a good one,

but knowing myself

I wonder.

An uncomfortable truth

that the word itself reveals.

Because “fathering”

is very different than “to mother”,

paternity

not at all the same as nurturing.

Although the more I learn

about the absent father

the more I value his role.

The importance of presence,

even if he hugs kind of stiffly

and finds "love" hard to say.

Still, can anyone really know

what kind of parent they'll make?

So I regret

I never had the chance to be tested.

How sad

we realize what we've missed

only when it's too late.

Because fathers deserve their day,

even if it was dreamed up

to hustle sensible hats 

 and after-shave.

Seeing his big meaty hands

awkwardly cradling

a helpless baby

makes even a cynic soften;

her wide eyes

looking directly up at his,

her crying stilled.

He will learn to diaper

He will stay

and watch her grow.

He will get a corny card

and gaudy tie

and long heartfelt embrace.

Put the card safely away

and save it for posterity.

When I ultimately googled the origins of Father's Day, it turns out that it's not some mercenary holiday concocted by marketers and card companies in the interest of venal commerce. It began honourably, perhaps dating back to 1908 when the daughter of a Civil War veteran lobbied local churches to honour fatherhood on her own dad's birthday. Although the origins appear to be murkier than that simple story, since I read both Spokane and West Virginia, and 1908 as well as 1910. It became official by means of a Presidential decree, and again, I found 2 versions: one, attributing this to Woodrow Wilson, the other Richard Nixon. But whatever story is accurate, I doubt the day would continue to be so widely observed and so culturally obligatory were it not for those same merchandisers and card companies flogging their wares.

I think this poem is a little more confessional and sentimental than usual. Not that there isn't a good measure of cynicism at its beginning. And I should say that the image of those manly hands cradling the helpless baby has become a kind of cliché of advertising, and pure manipulation. Still, whatever its origin, it's still an undeniably powerful image. As the poem implies, while your cool calculating intellectual mind can respond to it with cynicism, tear glands don't lie!