Amy Devitt
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Genre-colored glasses

Thoughts on genre, language, grammar, and other
rhetorical and linguistic norms

(Un)Happy Father’s Day

6/17/2017

10 Comments

 
Cast photo from Father Knows Best
Father Knows Best 1954, Wikimedia commons
This piece is for all of us without fathers on Father’s Day, whether our fathers died or left us or were never around in the first place.
For those without wonderful fathers on Father’s Day

For Mother’s Day, I wrote about Mother’s Day and Mother’s Day cards, and I shared the difficulties of finding a card for my unconventional mother.

But what about my father?

He died twelve years ago now. I think of him often and miss him terribly. But on Father’s Day, I feel his absence like the big gaping hole in the world that his death created.

Where is the Father’s Day card — or any genre — for my situation? What is there in writing, speech, image, or video to acknowledge, or recognize, or lessen my missing him?

It doesn’t exist.

Where’s the card or any genre for all the others without fathers on Father’s Day? Those with fathers who’ve died, yes, but also those with(out) fathers who’ve left. Or with(out) fathers who’ve never been there.

Shouldn’t there be something to help us through Father’s Day? A card? A ritual? A traditional greeting?
Forlorn child standing in bar with men on bar stools behind
Personal photo given to me by former student in late 1970s whose name I'm seeking
I went looking for one. I thought I would find Father’s Day cards to comfort those whose fathers had died, like I found for Mother’s Day. But my search turned up no such card (doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, but it does mean that such a card may be hard to find).

I did find websites, images, and blog posts for fatherless children like me, ones whose loving fathers have died. But not one of those images or websites that I could find would be appropriate for those whose fathers were not so loving, or whose fathers were absent, or whose fathers left.

One elegant typescript was “For Those Grieving a Beloved Father.” Another image “For the Fatherless on Father’s Day” showed a man and toddler walking on a beach, the father holding the child’s hand. Tributes abound to wonderful dads, loving fathers, great men. Other sites offer comforting religious quotations.

Social media platforms offer some ways to acknowledge one’s own father, like posting a photo of your father or making him part of your profile photo. That’s one loving way of acknowledging fathers who’ve died, and it might even be becoming a Father’s Day tradition. Father’s Day brings a mixture of pain and joy for those of us whose fathers have died, so it’s good to have a way of sharing the positive memories, too.

But not everyone wants to honor their missing father that way.

Not everyone wants to honor their father at all.

Maybe the rest of us could change our Facebook profile photo for the day to an image of a black hole, a deep well, or an entrance to a dark cave.

So while at least some sites and messages exist to acknowledge that Father’s Day is tough for those whose fathers have died, they still leave others out.

What they don’t seem to acknowledge is how tough Father’s Day is on those whose fathers left them while living, who were never there or were abusive, or who, for whatever reason, didn’t act as loving fathers or wonderful dads, who didn’t walk on the beach holding their toddler’s hands. The children, young or old, who didn’t have wonderful dads to honor or remember.

Those fatherless children find Father’s Day tough, too.
​
What is there for them?
boy and greyed-out father pulling sleds through snow
Screenshot, The Leftovers opening credits, youtube.com
I’m not trying to bring everybody down. Death is a fact of life. Missing fathers are a fact of life. Two sociologists studied fatherhood in the inner city of Philadelphia and Camden, New Jersey, to learn why fathers leave. As David Brooks reported in a column in the NY Times, they found most of the fathers wanted to be good fathers, but then fell away in repeated patterns: The pregnancy was unplanned; the parents don’t have a strong bond; each keeps looking for someone to better meet their needs; the parents split; a new man enters the household; the father’s role shifts; he tries again with another woman.

Lots of fathers leave, for lots of reasons — whether those reasons come from accident or divorce, death or life. That leaves lots of children without fathers. Leaving lots of children with pain on Father’s Day.

In the American cultures I know, we don’t deal with pain well, whatever the cause. And we don’t deal with the pain of grief well. And we especially don’t deal well with pain suffered long ago and still hurting. But maybe we could try, for Father’s Day. After all, there are a lot more of us missing fathers than missing mothers, though yes there are mothers who’ve died and left, too.

My plea is for all of us:

For one day, along with celebrating the joy of those children — young or old — who can enjoy the presence of their fathers, let’s just try to acknowledge the pain and grief of those who can’t.

What card, ritual, greeting, or tradition could we come up with?

There could be a tradition of sending a message on Father’s Day to those we know without fathers. A sympathy card, an email, a text message, or even a phone call. We could send each other sad emojis.

Maybe there could be a meme, with missing fathers at the center. Or one featuring strong adults who were fatherless as children.
​
We could even send flowers to our fatherless friends, recognizing that they might need a reminder of beauty on Father’s Day. Or invite them for a walk on a trail or through a park, letting nature help soothe the pain.

To those, like me, who grew up with loving fathers, Father’s Day has been a happy day, full of appreciation and joy. To all of you, I offer the traditional greeting: Happy Father’s Day!

To those, like me, whose fathers have died, I offer my empathy for the depth of that grief and the reminder of happier memories.

To those whose fatherlessness has been a fact of life rather than death, I offer my sympathy and regret. Even those who survived fatherlessness strong and proud can feel the pain of what could have been but wasn’t.

To all of us, let’s notice and acknowledge each other on Father’s Day instead of keeping awkwardly silent and ignoring the mixture of joy and pain.

Here’s a greeting you’re invited to offer me and others like me living with the absence of a father:

“(Un)happy Father’s Day. I see you.”
​
You can add a sad emoji if you like
Woman alone on beach
Absence, by Xavier Mazellier, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
10 Comments
Lisa Ede
6/18/2017 05:44:47 pm

What a powerful reflection. Thank you.

Reply
Amy
6/18/2017 07:16:09 pm

Thank you, Lisa, for taking the time to comment. That anything I write might be described as powerful makes me very proud. That you found it powerful means more than you can know.

Reply
Anthony Pare
6/18/2017 07:38:13 pm

Lovely piece, Amy. I can grow quite cynical by how these these days of celebration and remembrance are turned into commercial opportunities, so it's good to get something straight from the heart.

Reply
Amy
6/18/2017 08:45:53 pm

Thank you, Anthony. I think naïveté and idealism come to me by nature much more easily than cynicism, but I did have a moment in writing this post when I remembered how commercial all these holidays are. I decided to ignore it. Thank you for ignoring it for a moment, too

Reply
Amy
6/18/2017 08:55:27 pm

Oh I didn't mean that to sound flippant. I'm very grateful that you recognized that this was from the heart. That's what I meant to say

Laura Kirk
6/19/2017 06:03:34 am

I did have some friends do the all black square for their profile picture for father's day. Thanks for the writing.

Reply
Amy
6/19/2017 08:32:26 am

I hadn't seen the black square. I like that one for people whose fathers have died. Thanks for mentioning it, Laura

Reply
Laura Kirk
6/19/2017 08:39:14 am

It was actually for fathers who left/ weren't in the picture in their lives.

Amy
6/19/2017 08:44:18 am

Oh, I wouldn't have thought that since I'm so used to a black band meaning death. But if it's known on social media or among friends, it would work, of course.

Reply
Amy
6/19/2017 08:54:41 am

Thanks for clarifying, Laura. I'll watch for the black square next year

Reply

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    Author
    ​Amy Devitt

    I'm a genre-lover and language nerd who likes to write about the fascinating effects of genres (like grocery lists, blogs, and greeting cards, as well as mysteries and romances) on how we read and write and even live our lives. I also notice grammar a lot, both the "proper" kind and the fun kind, like grammar jokes.  For more, read my post on "What I Notice." I write this blog weekly to point out what I see and in hopes that you will tell me what you see, too. 

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  • Home
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