What dad really wants for Father's Day: Nothing
Stumped about what to give your dad for Father's Day?
The holiday feels so left-handed and lumpy and self-conscious somehow. Truth be told, most fathers would just as soon skip Father's Day and have a regular old summer Sunday instead.
It's the pressure of being the center of attention.
Three hundred sixty-four days a year, we sit there and listen as our wives and children talk about us as if we weren't even in the room, as if we were Labrador puppies they were trying to paper train. We're used to being overlooked, underestimated and unappreciated. We like it.
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Then along comes Father's Day, and we're expected to be gracious and accept all the attention, and we're not good at it.
We must feign gratitude for all the gifts we didn't want: Cheap screwdriver and socket sets that end up in the kitchen junk drawer, manicure kits made in China, nose hair trimmers, polo shirts, socks.
Gosh, thanks. No. Really. Thanks. They're just what we always wanted. We just didn't know we wanted them.
Fathers are notoriously bad at receiving gifts, because we're guys. As guys, we pretty much buy whatever we want, whenever we want it. No budget constraints. No saving up for it.
I have an uncle, the father of 11, who stopped at a bar on the way home from work. The bar was for sale. He bought it on the spot. I have a brother, the father of two, who bought a $7,000 bicycle the same way.
Where do you think all those power tools come from? And those sports cars? And video game systems? And flat screen TVs?
When you're a guy, every day is Father's Day -- as long as you lay low and don't call attention to yourself.
So if you're looking for the perfect Father's Day gift for someone special this year, why not give him what he really wants? Give him the gift of ambivalent apathy -- the same ambivalent apathy you give him the rest of the year.
Put a big stack of pancakes in him. Then let him lump up on the couch with the remote control. It's "normal," and he loves normal. It's a celebration of his real place in the family.
And isn't that what Father's Day is all about?