Hey DU Dads! What did Father's Day Mean To YOU?

I had a double header. Sunday was Father's Day, Monday my 51st birthday. To answer the "whajagit?" question, I got 4 polo shirts, 3 pairs of shorts, some underwear and 3 of my favorite movies (Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice , and Good Night and Good Luck). Modest gifts, but we're saving for a house. Not just a house, but the one we intend to be carried out of; our last house.

You know what, though? The clothes will wear out, the underwear will (unfortunately) eventually be skid marked and the movies were among ChicaAzul's and my "must gets". While I am grateful for my gifts, I am so much more grateful for other things.

I am grateful for a son who was more excited about giving gifts to me than I was about receiving them. Pretty remarkable for a 6 year old in my opinion.

I am grateful for a wife whose love for me matches the love I have for her. This woman amazes me EVERY DAY! I am moved almost to tears sometimes that there is such a wonderful woman sharing my life. While we are adoptive parents, I am a father BECAUSE of this woman.

I am grateful that we spent a weekend sharing meals, watching movies, laughing and enjoying each other's company and going to parks and lakes in the most beautiful (to us) place in the world, our adopted home state of MAINE! (BTW, if you bring your family to Maine for vacation, you MUST check out Lake St. George State Park on rte. 3, about 10 miles north of Belfast and 27 miles south of Augusta.)

I am most grateful for the fact that this family that I am absolutely BLESSED with is the family, not that I planned for when I was a younger man, but the family I always dreamed about.

Anyway, pardon me if I ramble, but my Father's day was the greatest. I hope you other DU dads had a great Father's day weekend. What made yours a good one?

Good for you. :thumbsup:

Mine was great, too--I got two bags of Starburst jellybeans (my favorite) from my son, the book "Chicken Soup for the Father and Daughter Soul" from my beautiful little girl, and my wife took everyone out to lunch and to see "An Inconvenient Truth".

The best part of it is having an excuse for everyone to be together for the day.

I'm going to guess that "An Inconvenient Truth" is a little beyond a 6 year old. We'll be getting a sitter soon, though!

but I wasn't surprised that she "got it" (the message).

Y'know, right now I'm helping to support an orphan in Iraq. A girl who lives with her uncle, and has no idea where her parents are. If they're alive or dead. She has 1 hour of power a day, food is scarce, and she lives in the al-Ghazalia section of Baghdad which is a violent slum.



Thinking about her on Father's Day tears me up. That, and the fact that my tax dollars are helping to make her youth a nightmare.

Does she hate America for our freedoms? :sarcasm:

(her sister is in Japan or she would have been here too)

that was great, as was the extended family cookout we hosted

But it also meant I got to reflect on how the fucking republicans have destroyed our country and replaced it with one in which I can no longer support my kids. I hate the repukes. I fucking hate them with every fiber of my being.

As another DU'er said, They're ALL ann coulter!

I've always had trouble thinking of Father's Day as a holiday. I essentially have no father and so never recognized the holiday at all, except every 11th year when my birthday falls on Father's Day. (I was actually born on Father's Day. Guess mine didn't appreciate it much. :-))

Anyway, I've never really noticed it when it would roll around. My daughter would get me a card, usually bought by my mother or her mother, and since she was about 11 or so, we'd go to the movies or something. (Funny thing. I finally realized she doesn't get me cards because I told her when she was young that I hate greeting/holiday cards. I'd rather get a phone call or a visit.) It was never special, to me, which wasn't a bad thing because I guess the lack of celebration was mostly of my own making...and my birthday is always nearby, which meant in younger years either I was being self-centered, running off with friends here and there and not actually around on Father's Day or, later, what celebration took place occurred on my birthday.

For some reason I've not bothered to question, my daughter decided to make this one more of a traditional day for me that was separate from my birthday. (Had a brief health episode at the end of last year when I thought for a few days I was dying, so that may have something to do with it.)

She made me dinner and a cake with her own hands. She also made me a t-shirt bearing a logo she drew herself of the bomb figure in _Breakfast of Champions_ with the words "Goodbye Blue Monday" on it. (It's one of my favorite books.) We watched movies at home, went to a movie, talked about our upcomming vacation trip together, talked about her friends, her life, my life, etc. It was really fun just hanging out all day.

She also conspired with my mother to get me a present for birthday/Father's Day I really, really wanted and never even guessed I might possibly get from anyone else. It was also the first time in my life (37 years) that anyone has truly been able to surprise me with a gift in the sense of me having no clue it was coming. I have been very late into the digital camera craze. I've always wanted one, but have never purchased one for myself despite getting one for my mother and one for my daughter. I was always waiting for ... something. I also need a new desk chair, or so says my daughter. The one I have I have had for about ten years now. The fake leather is old and brittle and tearing off in places. It squeaks. It'll probably fall over backwards with me in it in the not too distant future. But, I love it, mostly because it fits my butt perfectly, and have resisted getting a new one.

So, a couple weeks before F-D and my birthday, my mom and daughter told me they needed to borrow my truck this past weekend. Why? Can't tell me. Okay ... they're getting me a chair was the obvious conclusion. I made like I didn't figure it out, having learned a long time ago at least to fake surprise. And on F-Day itself, they showed up at my apartment, in my truck, with ... no chair. They just had a box, and in that box was a shiny, new digital camera I have been playing with constantly. That's when I realized my fake suprise act was about as good as William Shatner's portrayal of Hamlet. "To be ... or not .......... to be."

"We've lost him," my daughter said about an hour after she gave it to me, as I sat in my rapidly deteriorating but still butt-perfect chair discovering all the features on this thing. "Yes," my mother replied, "we got him a toy." Just a boy in an aging man's body. They seemed very pleased with themselves.

(But I did put it down after that so we could go out for the afternoon.)

thanks for sharing!

I was born on Father's Day, too. June 19, 1955. My 50th last year was Father's day, too!

What's your birthday?

BTW, My father was not a 1 dimensional person, but a TRUE bastard!

I've wanted to post about it, but everything I started to write came out so maudlin, and it wasn't a maudlin day at all. Your post provided the perfect context.

Anyway, my birthday is June 15th.

I don't know if my own father is one-dimensional or not. When I was young, I created stories about him in my head that made him out to be something really special. I met him for the first time since I was about 4 when I was 23, and he pretty much destroyed all those notions as he flowed forth with his racist and homophobic bilge and quickly drank himself into a coma the one night I spent with him. (He decided I was gay for no reason I can fathom and upon discovering my best friend was black, pretty much decided I couldn't be his son.) In my head now, I guess he is one-dimensional. He's a cardboard cutout I typically refer to as "the sperm-donor." Not original, but I don't care to expend original thought on him.

My life's quest is simply not to be like him with my own daughter, I think I have succeeded in that.

...to make him a better person than he wasn't CONSUMED with getting laid there had to be something wong with me. I'd love to hear his thoughts about my Puerto Rican wife & Black son. Actually, no, I wouldn't!

I have the same goal for my son as you do for your daughter. A good goal for us both, I'd say!

Three total.

First year, I was away for a month on business, putting in long days as a free-lance contract employee. I got back on Father's Day, and handed my wife the new Dell Inspiron I had bought her with part of my earnings. She handed me a shirt she made.

Second year, I was stressed out because I'm the stay at home dad and not built for combat duty. Wife was spending 12 hours a day 7 days a week at work, her first year in a tenure-track job. The munchkin was letting me get no dissertation work done; we'd just gotten back from a month in Poland and my advisor wanted a report. And my patience was fraying with child care, since he had just mastered walking. What do I get? I made breakfast, wife gave me a card and "A Dad's Guide to the Toddler Years", and she went to work.

This year, my wife's school ended for summer break and she immediately went into conference mode; tenure-track, remember, year #2? 15-hour days for a week or two, every day, to get ready for an overseas conference; then a week overseas, leaving me as stay-at-home dad with the toddler waking up each morning, giving me one look, and crying, 'Mommy home!' 'Talk mommy!' And if I looked at him so much as cross-eyed, he'd say 'bye-bye' and close the door behind him as he left the room. (He's already a bundle of snarkiness at 2 1/2 years old.) She returns from Europe, puts the next paper together with more 15-hour days, and she's off to another conference. She returns, spends two days here, and takes off with the child to visit her parents out of state for two weeks. At least there's peace and a chance to work on the long-forgotten diss project.

My father's day present came in the mail on Saturday. Another card and a book .......



"The U.N. Exposed: How the UN Sabotages America's Security."

With the inevitable question when I called her on Sunday ... 'How did you like your present? I thought you'd like it!' Arrgggghhhhhhh. "Must be great. It has rave reviews on the back cover from Rudolph Giuliani, Ann Coulter, Christopher Hitchens, Jesse Helms, Rich Lowry ..." And again I say, Arrggghhhhh.

I love my wife; I love my kid. But I swear ... given the choice between Father's Day #4 or a root canal, root canal's looking awfully good.

Good luck in the future!

Maybe just some fillings will do!

I have a book that I'd let go real cheap ... x(

...but I don't know if you want that bile in such an intimate area!

sell more greeting cards :-)

Of course, cards had nothing to do with the quality of my day, so pardon me for enjoying it.

:-)

As a new father of a 7 week old baby boy, I try to make every day Father's day

Even when your child is being a pain in the neck, parenthood is great!

Even when the kids are being a pain in the neck, you just love'em to no end!

move a huge piece of furniture upstairs! (He and his wife just bought a house)

A beautiful day I must say. Today, a card came in the mail from my step-daughter who lived across the state. She made my day all over again!

Be a frequent guest to your son's house!

"Dad, Thanks so much for being here for me and the family. Thank you for your willingness to take care of things that might not have gotten done without your help. You are loved and you are appreciated. I just wish there was more I could do for you. I am especially thankful to God for you. And I'm so happy you are here to be able to celebrate Father's Day as many of my friends Fathers aren't. I love you."

....it brought a tear to my eye to think she wrote such nice words for an asshole like me....

...you CAN"T POSSIBLY be an asshole!

for them. It was the best one yet.

...step-parenting is harder than parenting. Good for you!

I've been horribly offended by so many of the threads posted by other men who are also fathers (or maybe that should be "fathers") on this website, but yours actually appeared sincere and reasonably free of odious, misogynist sentiments. Nice work. It's good to know there are some decent male parents around these parts after all.

Mostly we stay quiet and don't care about anyone else's judgements about how we feel about our families.

Nothing, nada... None.

Oh well.

*sigh*

...have a great day!

I took out to Breakfast!

He liked that.

:7

:thumbsup: