Great photo in this tweet:
Happy Father's Day! (photo by Terry Crayne; https://t.co/zJd6vjiuK3) pic.twitter.com/zQxFLjhWmx
— BirdWatchingMagazine (@BirdWatchDaily) June 17, 2018
Happy Father’s Day to all jackal dads! Hope you’re having fun with your pups.
This is a red-letter day in our household. My husband is an excellent dad and thus gets to name the day’s menu while loafing around watching golf. (Bacon and strawberry buttermilk pancakes already completed; eggplant parm coming up this evening.) Right now, he and the spawn are off riding around in the country.
To be honest, I dread Father’s Day every year because my dad and I have a difficult relationship. I disappointed him by being born without a dick, and then my sister went and did the very same thing a year later. Not long thereafter, our parents’ marriage imploded, and my dad has been more absent than present in my life ever since — by mutual agreement.
But he did teach me to swim, water ski, ride motorcycles, drive large trucks with large boats attached, launch said boats from treacherous ramps and then drive the boats too, in all kinds of weather. He taught me to scuba dive and fish. He taught me to ride and care for horses. These are all valuable skills to have, so I am grateful.
After putting it off for most of the day, I’ll call him later, and we’ll have a painfully awkward conversation because we have absolutely nothing in common. We’ll both be relieved to hang up, unless he brings up the subject of Trump, in which case we’ll hang up angry.
This is actually an improvement over our relationship in years past; we didn’t speak at all for most of the 1990s. My mom, who had more reason to despise my dad than anyone, never stopped encouraging me to maintain contact with him. And I do — partly in her honor.
We’re running out of time to get our relationship right, my dad and me. He’s in good health, but he turned 70 a couple of years back. He’s the only parent I have left, and I’m acutely aware of that.
It makes me sad that we aren’t closer, that we find it impossible to appreciate each other’s good qualities more. But given who we are, I think this is probably as good as it gets, and I’m making my peace with that as best I can.
Anyhoo, sorry to be depressing about Father’s Day, but I suspect I am not alone in feeling ambivalent about it.
Open thread!