I feel like Father’s Day and Mother’s Day are both in that category of “non-Jewish holidays that many of us don’t officially celebrate, but we also don’t officially not celebrate.” Mother’s Day in particular.
A couple of years ago, I wrote a column about the origins of Mother’s Day, and I said that with Mother’s Day, even if you don’t think you celebrate it -- even if your mother says, “No, no, you don’t have to get me anything” -- you still say, “Uh… Maybe let’s get her something just in case?” But with Father’s Day, he says, “No, no, you don’t have to get me anything,” and you say, “Maybe let’s get him something just in case?” but he says, “No, I mean it. Please don’t get me anything!”
Officially, Father’s Day is a day to show how much we appreciate fathers. And the answer is, “Not as much as mothers.” It is a full month later. And it was definitely invented afterward.
So some people celebrate Father’s Day, while some people think honoring one’s father is bechukoseihem lo seileichu, at least on this one Sunday. “Every day should be Father’s Day,” they say. But realistically, do you buy your father stuff every single day? No? Good, because he doesn’t want your stuff.
He really doesn’t want Father’s Day. It’s the opposite of what he wants.
What are you going to get him? Are you going to spend his own money on him? Are you going to buy him something with that money that he could have easily bought himself, but he would have bought one he liked more? Are you then going to take him out to eat so that he has to spend even more of his money? On you? Okay, so let’s say you don’t go out. Are you going to make him his favorite meal? His favorite meal is probably something the doctor told him not to have. Are you going to make your father breakfast in bed? Your father has to go to Shacharis. Maybe you can let him take a nap, which is actually something he might want, and then wake him up for lunch in bed, but the truth is, he’d rather have the nap than the lunch. Are you going to make him a handmade gift? Your mother’s the one who appreciates sentimental stuff. The father does not want it. He’ll say he likes it, and maybe he does, in concept, but now he has to find somewhere to keep it, and use it when you’re around… You’re really just giving him obligations.
And no father wants something that says, “World’s Best Dad” on it. Like a tie, for example. When is he going to wear that? He will not wear that, because he doesn’t want to make the other dads at work feel bad. Or the other dads in shul on Shabbos. At best, he gets to wear your tie around the house that one day. On a Sunday.
I feel like Father’s Day was made because there was already a Mother’s Day, and someone was like, “Well, we have to give fathers a day too,” and fathers were like, “Nonono, it’s okay,” and that someone said, “No, we’re going to make a Father’s Day!” On a Sunday. When we’re off anyway. How about making it on a weekday, at least?
Anyway, that was my assumption going in. So I did the research, and here are some fun facts:
- Father’s Day was first proposed by Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington, in 1910, two years after the creation of Mother’s Day. There are no coincidences.
- Sonora proposed this to celebrate her father, William Smart, a single father of 6 kids, 5 of them boys. He raised them all himself, and she thought he should be celebrated for the fact that there were still six of them.
- So after hearing a sermon about Mother’s Day in 1910, she told her pastor that fathers should have a day too. And he was all for it, because he thought she meant the other kind of father.
- She wanted to do it on her father’s birthday, which was the fifth of June, but the pastors of the Spokane Ministry Alliance didn’t have enough time to prepare their sermons by then, so they pushed it off to the third Sunday of June.
- Initially, the holiday didn’t have much success. Also later it didn’t have much success. No one wanted it. Father’s Day was not met with the same vigor and enthusiasm as Mother’s Day, even by fathers. They thought of it as a commercial gimmick to sell products often paid for by the father himself. It’s genius, actually. But very transparent.
- In the 1920s, Dodd herself stopped promoting the celebration of Father’s Day, because she had to balance it with being a mother.
- Finally, in 1966, Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers on the third Sunday in June, to commemorate that time that the ministers needed four weeks to write their speeches.
- The #1 Father’s Day gift is ties.
- Close on the list is slippers, despite that most men wear shoes all day and then no shoes at night and that’s it. We wear slippers on Tisha B’Av and Yom Kippur, and also on Sukkos if we sleep in the sukkah, and also if we have to run out of the house in middle of the night because our wives want us to see where the sirens are coming from.
- Meanwhile, the standard minhag for Mother’s Day is flowers. Father’s Day has almost no flowers. Though maybe it would be a good idea to get your father flowers that he can hand your mother and take credit for. That’s the best gift for Father’s Day – things your mother likes.
- While Mother’s Day is known -- according to the phone company -- as the day of the year with the highest number of phone calls, Father’s Day is known for having the highest number of collect calls.
- Apparently collect calls are still a thing.
- I haven’t made one since yeshiva. Basically, the way it works is you call the operator, and they call your father, and they say, “You have a collect call from ThisisMordechaihaveagoodShabbosandalsoIneedmorecereal. Will you accept the charges?” And your father says, “No.” And then he calls you back. Or not; it’s his choice.
See? That’s what Father’s Day should be about: giving the father choices. If you’re going to do it at all, it should be about finding out what fathers would want if it was actually up to them.
Mostly, what fathers would want on Father’s Day is to be left alone. Technically, we want that every day, but it doesn’t happen. But no, everyone’s going to gather around us because it’s Father’s Day. That’s not what we want!
For that one day, no one should speak to us unless spoken to. You can call your father to wish him a happy Father’s Day, but you’re not allowed to make him lead the conversation. And rebbeim are not allowed to give homework. For that one day, we should be allowed to sneeze as loud as we need to. And maybe people shouldn’t have all the lights on in the house all the livelong day. And also, for that one day, no one in my life should tell me that they told me something already.
And maybe laugh at some of our dad jokes, for a change.
Also, maybe we should get a break from all the stuff we do around the house that no one else will do. I want a day where I don’t have to stomp down the garbage, and where people don’t make me smell things to see if they’re going bad, and where I don’t have to wake people up for Shacharis while buttoning my shirt. That’s fun. I’m barely up myself.
“You have yeshiva today.”
“What?! But it’s Father’s Day!”
I’m thinking that if anything, Father’s Day should be more like a Jewish holiday. Not like a non-Jewish holiday where you give the guy a present and take him out to dinner. There are no Jewish holidays that are about that. A Jewish holiday is more about, “Here’s what we don’t do on that day.” Here are all the things you’re not allowed to ask your father to do Father’s Day.
I mean, think about all the things that fathers do that go unnoticed and unsung:
- Seeing where the sirens are coming from.
- Using that last sliver of the bar of soap because everyone else has clearly moved on to using the new one.
- Taking the worst seat at the table – the one at the head where you can’t reach anything.
- Going through the fridge and smelling things.
- Making our sons’ ties on our own neck.
- Taking the dead bugs out of the house. Everyone’s afraid they’ll come back to life if they touch them, like the bug was faking it, as a prank.
- Taking all the tangled hair out of brushes and brooms.
- Putting all the loose Q-tips back in the box.
- Taking the last few tissues out of the old box and stuffing them into the new box.
- Locking the front door every night after everyone is safely upstairs, and also checking to make sure the back door is locked. And then coming down to check one more time at the behest of our wife.
(Special thanks to the following people who helped me remember some of these: Henye Meyer, Mayer Krochmal, Abbaleh, Susan Lewin, Directions in Rashi, Put Children First, Gutgezugt, Abe H., JA, Slpnumber1.)
So maybe call your father this Sunday, collect. Or actually, don’t call him “this Sunday.” Call him “Totty.”
Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia, a monthly humor columnist, and has written six books, all published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send any questions, comments, or ideas to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
