This has changed over the years. Back in my Jesus People days up until about 2010, Mothers Day was an outpouring of bathos about how sainted mothers are, how much you owe your mother, flowers for every mother leaving the service, etc. I think there was some culture war going on there, a defense of women having children despite the social pressure to drop all that and have a career. The Dobsons and others wanted to make sure that they got the word out that they supported mothers. They really supported mothers. Don't think for a minute that they didn't notice that mothers had a very difficult, valuable job.
OTOH, I think it was that way when I was a child too. We were given a flowering plant at Sunday School to give to our mothers. So maybe it's not culture war, but cultural inertia. When I was in DeMolay, we were very big on mothers. I don't recall fathers being mentioned.
Fathers Day, however, was an opportunity to indict fathers for how badly they were falling down on the job in this country. Statistics of dads spending only 37 seconds a week with their kids were quoted. Divorced dads not showing up. Somewhere in there a run on mugs, trophies, and socks saying "World's Best Dad"came in and persisted at a low background level. Those fall well below the level of consolation prize, BTW.
I mentioned the Mothers Day/Fathers Day contrast in church as far back as the 80s, and I think at least some people noticed. I haven't heard an accusation sermon about the day in years. Of course, I haven't heard Dads mentioned at all in any other context in evangelical circles for decades anyway. Just "Oh. Hey. Happy Fathers Day to all the dads out there. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming." Babylon Bee catches it pretty well.
5 comments:
A friend mentioned his irritation at the "Happy Fathers Day to all you Single Moms who are doing both parent's jobs!" pieces he was seeing. I hadn't seen any such until he mentioned it, but now I have. I don't know if it just didn't impress itself upon me until he drew my attention to it, or if it's something I hadn't encountered.
Father's Day wasn't much on the radar for a long time in the circles I was in. My father detested the idea, calling it a made-up celebration.
One church I attended had, on the various specified days, all the veterans stand to be clapped for, all the fathers stand to be clapped for, and all the mothers (sometimes being careful to include those who lost the child) stand to get a rose. (At one place they singled out mothers by the number of children they raised. Ouch.) Then the regular service went on. I don't recall any service dedicated to mothers or fathers. I'm probably fortunate that way.
And since I'm not that keen on roses, by simple projection I figured that most other fathers weren't either, and didn't care about the lack of flowers--and probably were grateful that somebody else remembered to get flowers for their wives. (I have some blind spots. Florists are invisible.)
So far I haven't seen any pieces like those Grim mentions. Luckily.
The "Happy Fathers Day to all you Single Moms who are doing both parent's jobs!" annoyed me too. I have to admit it was "parent's" that first caught my attention. And then it was "jobs" that annoyed me. And then... OK, I'm easily annoyed... I remembered the "Single Dads" in the previous century (Bonanza, My Three Sons, Eddie's Father, etc) and just got more annoyed. Those were followed by "Single Mom" sitcoms... finally morphing into Modern Family, accompanied by the "Completely Absent Parents" teen shows. I think Charles in Charge was the first of those. And all the above is why I don't watch much TV now. I like Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune.
Donna B - you are speaking my language. I hope you like my piece from ten years ago.
https://assistantvillageidiot.blogspot.com/2009/04/missing-family-members-on-tv.html
Ten years ago! Are we officially "old farts" now?
One thing all those old missing parent shows had in common was a substitute mom/dad. Uncle Charlie, Hop Sing, the janitor on that show I can't remember the name of. The newer shows still portray the mother/father roles even if both are male. I wonder why there's not a show portraying a woman fulfilling the father role? Is there and I've missed it?
Post a Comment