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Father's Day comes a little too soon after Mother's Day on the calendar for most dads to be treated to anything very special. Most families who have school-age kids have benefited from teachers helping kids create something for Mother's Day. By Father's Day, the kids are out of school and not thinking much about cut-and-paste projects.
Moms get something like a Valentine’s Day special gift, but normally Dads get token gestures. It’s a rare family – and usually prompted by the mother – that has a celebration for Dad that matches in extravagance and attention what Mom got.
Good fathers don’t make a big deal of the discrepancy. They usually handle it just fine, and can use the day as a means for teaching some important lessons, if they care to.
They can teach the use of “Thank you” as a simple grace. When given whatever comes their way, good fathers can express gratitude and simply recognize the caring behind it. They don’t have to gush, and it’s actually better if they don’t. Kids who are exquisitely sensitive to such things know that they gave Mom a much better show, with more investment of time, energy and affection. And if Dad makes a to-do that matches Mom’s gushing, they’ll know he’s faking it. He’s pretending to be overwhelmed when he’s not. That’s a way to teach hypocrisy, which good fathers know is no family value worth preserving.
Instead, they’ll teach the grace of a simple “Thanks,” appropriate but not excessive, that acknowledges the gift but doesn’t weigh it down with more significance than it can carry. With simple gratitude, they teach kids that honesty matters at least as much as affection, and they give kids a chance to show some love straightforwardly and directly, without frills or fanciful language. Fathers know – and they can teach their kids – that love is not about the show.
They can also model how to love a mate. They can model how to love when they aren’t lavished. The day after Father's Day is much like the day before, and that’s how love is supposed to be. The good father knows his being a good husband depends as much on predictability and reliability as on expressiveness and emotion. He knows that love doesn’t depend on mountaintops; it keeps moving on level ground, making forward progress by a steady pace and daily disciplines. Good fathers can model endurance, persistence and determination as expressions of love as valuable as affection, extravagance and appreciation.
The good father teaches that love remains the same before and after special celebrations, continues regardless of whether it gets special recognition or not, and doesn’t depend on receiving gifts.
What good fathers can teach on Father's Day – when they don’t get nearly the attention that Moms get on Mother's Day and are just fine with that – is a powerful lesson about love as a gift you give, not a gift you expect to receive.
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