It’s Father’s Day as I write this. The end of the day, the kids in bed, and they’ve survived, once again, this day our family does not celebrate. It was the first year Claire was really aware of Father’s Day, because her kindergarten class did a project for their dads. I’d given her a head’s up, of course, when she was thrilled with her first elementary school Mother’s Day project.
Guess what, sweetie. You’ll do this again next month, but it’ll be for dads. You can do your project for someone else, for me or for Grandpa. She chose Grandpa, and on Friday the project came home, duly wrapped and labeled for my father, who lives 300 miles away and will get it when we visit this summer.
Claire’s teacher knows our Single Mother by Choice family structure, and I’m sure there was no issue with the project or she would have emailed about it. Claire too seemed completely blasé about the whole thing. At church today it was the Sunday School end-of-year party, complete with pizza and cupcakes and a Veggie Tales move about Jonah and the Whale. I’m not sure Father’s Day was even covered, though Claire and Anna did decorate a coffee mug for me.
The church knows our family – no one would have tried to tell my girls to make a mug for their father. Both seemed thrilled with the mug, though the pizza and cupcakes had more mileage.
It’s the day of the year my Single Mothers by Choice friends all debate and rehash. The school projects. The unintentional awkwardness among strangers offering special deals for the day or best wishes. The perennial essays online, in the newspapers, about paternal relationships good, bad and absent. Close friends – married, supportive, aware – ask me discreetly how my girls cope with the day, as though we’re the neighbourhood Muslims trying to shelter our kids from the secret of Santa Claus. Am I in denial when I say it’s no big deal? My girls are oblivious, envying their friends’ dog more than their friends’ father – why can’t WE have a dog?
As for me, I confess I forgot about my own father on Father’s Day, sent no card, made no phone call. It’s Anna’s birthday – she’s just turned 3, and the leadup to this week was all about the party on Saturday, the dragon cake (dried mango for the flames), pigs in a blanket and baked pasta, chips and dip and a largely uneaten fruit and veggie tray. As usual, I invited too many kids and everyone accepted, so my backyard was chock full of 3 year olds and big and little siblings, parents and neighbours and friends old and new. It was a wonderful day. My baby is three, and I’m that mom who loves the party preparation and the delight and excitement only small children can muster about such things. It was a great party.
So, I forgot about Father’s Day, our post-party rest day, a morning at church and an afternoon at the splash pad, chicken on the barbecue and popsicles for dessert. Another dozen or more years to go, times two kids – a lot of projects for Grandpa, though I suppose schools drop the theme when arts and crafts take up less of the curriculum and the natural course of things make nuclear families less assumed.
For now, I write an annual essay about the lack of father in our family and tend to believe that it’s no big deal. Soon enough my girls will be old enough to write their own essays, and I’ll let you know whether their take on the matter matches mine.