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Father’s Day 2008

I t seems funny that while my husband’s birthday sometimes falls on Mother’s Day, mine sometimes falls on Father’s Day. I’m not sure what, if anything, this means, but it seems nice that we’ll both have something to celebrate one weekend in May and June. I think I was actually born on Father’s Day, almost 34 (gasp!) years ago. And we thought Junior was going to be born on Father’s Day, but he ended up being almost two weeks late.

Father’s Day heralds another important time in our family this year, which is the end of Stephen’s paid employment and beginning of taking a year to be full-time caregiver to Junior as I go back to work. We’ll have three weeks off together as a bit of a summer vacation, and then I’ll go to work every morning and leave my two “boys” at home.

Although Stephen seems to be the only dad in the informal group of moms I’ve been spending time with in the last year to be doing this, I understand he’s been hearing about several men who have done the same thing. And while it’s still uncommon for our generation, it’s definitely more usual than in our fathers’ time.

I can remember my mom making a comment about her father being surprised at how involved my father was in my and my sister’s upbringing. From her own childhood to mine was a vast change in how involved fathers were, and now from mine to my son’s even more.

While my father went off to work every day and my mother stayed at home until I was 12 to raise my sister and me, he was very involved evenings and weekends. I have fond memories when I was a kid of fishing with my dad at the cottage, wanting to fish in the boat with my shirt off, just like dad. Dad was the one to teach us how to bait a line and wait for the second nibble to set the hook. He was the one to run behind my two-wheeler, holding onto the seat, until I looked back, exuberant with the feeling of wind in my hair, only to see him standing four houses back yelling encouragement before I fell off.

Dad also spent hours in the car, teaching me to make a left-hand turn safely and to “drive with the traffic.” He was a volunteer umpire at softball, grades four through six, exploiting his power to make sure I never played catcher out of fear for my safety. He was the best paper-towel-roll-horn player when I was a toddler, and paid my first (and only) speeding ticket as a young adult, blaming the cop instead of me.

As the only man in a house of three women, he did suffer. And not just from the lack of bathroom time, but caught hell for the slightest whiff of sexism from my sister and me, who sucked up like sponges my mother’s feminist teachings. I think he’s overjoyed at the arrival of a grandson - he’s already asked about baby’s first chainsaw.

Stephen continues the family tradition. (photo by Loraine)

Although our current plan is for Stephen to be home only for a year until we re-evaluate our lives and finances, it should be interesting to see how Junior’s memories of his father are influenced by the daily contact. Most mothers I know complain of how daddy gets to be the “fun one,” doing special weekend things instead of the daily boring things, like brushing teeth, doing chores and so on. But in our house, Stephen has made it a priority to be an equal partner in parenting, being the one who gets up with Jack every morning, even when he’s up before 6 am, feeding Jack his before-bed bottle, singing 80s sitcom themes and blowing a mean paper-towel-roll horn. In fact, the first few days of Jack’s life he was as much a part of the breastfeeding as I was, since it took at least four hands to feed the child as we supplemented with formula using a lactation tube at the breast. And I don’t think I changed a single diaper until well into the second week of Jack’s life, and sporadically after that until Stephen returned to work.

I really look forward to seeing how their relationship grows and changes, especially over this next year. Jack’s lucky to spend the next year with such a #1 Dad.

Happy Father’s Day to all you dads, especially Jack’s and my own. Enjoy your ties! (oops - that was supposed to be a surprise….)