Today is "Fathers Day". And I had no idea till a few minutes back when my daughter walked in with a cake that said "Happy Father's Day". The irony was that she was just returning from a weekend visit to my parents place.
I've always believed that all of these various days are just figments of imagination of smart marketing people of card companies, who came up with these days to increase their revenue, since Chritmas and New Year only came once a year. Unfortunately they were so close to each other that even here, just 1 card got sent. Since a single major event was not getting sufficient revenues, the card companies came up and poularized several events across the year, including Valentine's, Father's Day, Mother's Day, Children's Day, Doctor's Day, ... Great for their business. Until the e-Card came along and they were once again struggling.
Now that I knew it was Father's Day, I did the most obvious thing. Under the watchful glare of my daughter. Called up Dad. And wished him. And he after politely thanking me, informed that I was the last of the kids to call him. Don hadn't called, but he was excused as he was trekking with his kids in the Grand Canyon and so didn't count. Lesson Learnt. Father's Day gets entered into my to do list, reminder list, and all the other lists I keep to remind me of events and occasions. Its another matter that since I don't have something to remind me to check the reminders, I end up forgetting anyways.
Father's are probably the most misunderstood and underrated relationship. He's typically the Bad Cop in the family equation, with the Mom being the Good Cop. And in the age of equality, its the guy who typically ends up coming home late and so spends the least amount of time too. Add to that, the fact that men aren't the greatest of communicators and show very little emotion and so affection. All of this adds up to the image of an uncaring or if you're lucky, caring but not as much as mom image.
It doesn't change much even when you become a Dad and so I'm writing here what I was unable to convey to Dad on the phone. Thanks Dad for everything. You made a lot of sacrifices so that we could get opportunities you never had. All of that is much appreciated. And as our way of saying Thank You, I'm going to give you an opportunity to do the same once again for your grand kids.
I've always believed that all of these various days are just figments of imagination of smart marketing people of card companies, who came up with these days to increase their revenue, since Chritmas and New Year only came once a year. Unfortunately they were so close to each other that even here, just 1 card got sent. Since a single major event was not getting sufficient revenues, the card companies came up and poularized several events across the year, including Valentine's, Father's Day, Mother's Day, Children's Day, Doctor's Day, ... Great for their business. Until the e-Card came along and they were once again struggling.
Father's are probably the most misunderstood and underrated relationship. He's typically the Bad Cop in the family equation, with the Mom being the Good Cop. And in the age of equality, its the guy who typically ends up coming home late and so spends the least amount of time too. Add to that, the fact that men aren't the greatest of communicators and show very little emotion and so affection. All of this adds up to the image of an uncaring or if you're lucky, caring but not as much as mom image.
It doesn't change much even when you become a Dad and so I'm writing here what I was unable to convey to Dad on the phone. Thanks Dad for everything. You made a lot of sacrifices so that we could get opportunities you never had. All of that is much appreciated. And as our way of saying Thank You, I'm going to give you an opportunity to do the same once again for your grand kids.
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