A Hope for Softer Fathers

I woke up today, Father’s Day, to a pink morning, with all my kids enjoying Barbie cartoons. They gave me a toy as a gift—it also happened to be pink. I have two boys; one is a preteen, and many would say he not only “should” be grown out of the Barbie show, but by their standards he should never have watched it in the first place.

I try to avoid patting myself on the back about such things, because striving for gender equitability should be the minimum, not worthy of any accolades, not to mention Barbie is still incredibly consumerist—baby steps, right? I’m not a perfect father.

But a part of me still wants to give some of us dads a brief pat on the back today because the Patriarchal Papas (new band name) will absolutely avoid giving us any awards for being “soft,” for working on ourselves and our systems, for prioritizing emotional intelligence. And we certainly won’t get any free cookies for rejecting imperial propaganda—yet we should reject it anyway.

(“Oh, here we go again, just like on Star Wars Day, Casey is connecting what should be a Rockwellian holiday to the current international horrors.” I’ll try not to do this every holiday, but here we are.)

In the United States in 1972, war criminal Richard Nixon declared Father’s Day a national holiday. Today, in 2024, war criminals Joe Biden and Kamala Harris posted on social media celebrating “the fathers” and “all fathers,” respectively. Military and political accounts will likely do the same; I won’t link to them, but on their organizations’ Instagram accounts today, both the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army posted their own special flavor of militarized paternal platitudes. (I have no idea what The Orange One is posting about today.) Maybe my personal algorithm is indistinguishable from just a few years ago, but I also remember constant “Military father returns home to surprise son/daughter on Father’s Day” posts happening like clockwork every June. I’m guessing these videos are happening again today.

I know you don’t get to pick your father, and the children of military fathers have genuine emotions upon seeing their dads again, but the more we can deconstruct the United States Miliary/Police Industrial Complex, and patriarchy at large, the better fathers we will be, because for far too long “good” fatherhood has been linked