Bum deal looms for Father’s Day

“I SAID, ‘I’d like to see you if you don’t mind’. He said, ‘I’d love to, dad, if I could find the time’.” – Harry Chapin, Cat’s In The Cradle

THIS is a good week to be a dad. Father’s Day is just around the corner.

After the holiday-free days of winter since the Queen’s Birthday long weekend, Father’s Day is a reminder that more days of celebration — and better weather — are on the way.

Cards are being made or bought, breakfast-in-bed menus discussed and suitable presents assessed.

So naturally there is a definite father-friendly feeling to the junk mail — just not to the extent of Mother’s Day. In a random sampling of nine that appeared in our letterbox one day this week, just two had dads on the cover.

For whatever reason advertisers have never seen Father’s Day as quite the same cash cow as Mother’s Day. And that’s OK. Father’s Day doesn’t have to be commercialised to be memorable. As long as our family tradition continues and I get a box of Cadbury Favourites I’m one happy dad. I don’t know what kind of dad I’ve been; I’m too close to be truly objective on that call. But I know what kind of dad I don’t want to be. I don’t want to be the kind of dad that gets “gob smacked” by the “best Father’s Day present I have ever bloody got” — when it’s a dunny seat. Among the reams of advertising I’ve scanned in the past week or two was one for a bidet website that was headed “Perfect Gift for Father’s Day”.

If this one particular ad is to be believed, beer, chocolates or tickets to the footy are now passe as gifts.

Apparently getting a warm water wash and warm air dry — all at the push of a button — after going “to the toot” now is on trend.

If that’s true, count me out.

I don’t want to associate Father’s Day with answering the call of nature.

Father’s Day has to be more than that.

Just ask someone who no longer gets to say “Happy Father’s Day”, whose father is no longer there to hear those words.