A Single Mom’s Guide to a Fatherless Father’s Day
Changing my perspective changed my parenting
In my head, it’s Father’s Day and I’m buying a gift for a never-there, takes three weeks to respond to his only son’s texts, delinquent on child support, and fight me in court instead of help pay medical bills dad. Until I give up and decide to stop pursuing child support and pay all bills myself. I buy a gift every year for this non-prize winner dad until my son hits the age where he has his own job.
I spend every Father’s Day of my son’s childhood fuming about my limited budget going the way of a little boy’s hopes and dreams, but I spend the damned money anyway, biting my tongue. I refuse to speak badly about his dad, preferring my son make up his own mind when he’s older.
One year, it occurs to me that I am also a father. I mean, I’m doing the work of a never-there father, right? I should get a gift on both Mother’s Day and Father’s Day if I’m doing the work of both parents.
So I jokingly tell my son that on Father’s Day, he should come up with a name that means Mom is my Dad. We brainstorm multiple names that could work, laughing at our silliness. And we forget the topic until the following year.
The next year on Father’s Day, I ask for a hammer. Or golf balls. Or a tie. I’m undecided, I declare. Surprise me. He asks for money to buy his biological dad a gift and we pick out more silly names that mean My Mom is my Father.
But the Father’s Day gift gets sent to his barely-there parent, because it makes my kid smile, imagining how happy his dad might be when his gift gets delivered. No response to the delivered gift, of course.
As retribution, I demand to be called FaMo (Father Mother) on the next Father’s Day.
I brush up on stupid dad jokes and we talk about cars and girls; I tell him things I think a true dad would have told him, like ways to face the world as a man with character and backbone to stand up for what you believe in. We talk about shaving someday and how to tell if you’re ready for deodorant. Things that would really be embarrassing to discuss with your mom. I realize I’m getting the best gifts, just having time with a precious boy whose heart is so full of love that he finds it difficult to see the flaws of either parent and blames all shortcomings on himself.
The next year, I announce the week before Mother’s Day that on Mother’s Day, I’ll need to be addressed as MoFa.
It’s the balanced, Cher addition, one name parenting phenomenon that really captures the magic of the Mom who’s also Dad. We decide we’ll make both Mother’s Day and Father’s Day a dual celebration. We’ll continue to buy gifts for the absent dad on Father’s Day because my son insists. I’ll still dispense fatherly advice and demand a hammer, tie, or dad gifts. By now, we’re both having fun with the parenting shenanigans and no one is really paying attention to the parent who is never present.
We say we’ll take up fishing, although we laugh about the last couple of times I got my hands on a fishing pole. One time, I hooked both a dog and a tree, but no fish. That takes mad skills, I exclaim. The next time, I catch ten fish, but it’s during the Cystic Fibrosis fundraiser at a stocked pool and the helpers bait our fishing poles. They also remove the wiggling fish from the line and add them back into the pool. I’ll do better, I promise. I’ll be a better fishing dad. I’m getting less pained faces from him as I tell my dad jokes, which I consider whole-hearted success.
I join the Center for Fathering (www.fatherhood.gov) and I’m truly impressed by their commitment to build great dads. It restores my faith in humanity. The tradition of being called FaMo (Father’s Day) or MoFa (Mother’s Day) continues to evolve.
On Mother’s Day, we cook together and he adds olive juice to the spaghetti sauce, which adds the exact right touch of saltiness to the robust tomatoes. I proclaim him an intrinsic chef, knowing the perfect thing to add because I never knew something was missing. His young face beams at his daring creativity.
Father’s Day rolls around and we head out to tour Home Depot, so we can spend the day on our FaMo Honey-Do list. We buy hot dogs and root beers for the boys' day and elbow each other on the armrest when one of the dad jokes is actually funny. We talk about metric conversions and spend more time with tape measures than the trip requires, but it’s a full day of FaMo shenanigans. After we’ve broken as many things as we repaired, we call it a success. We’re learning the skills of home repair through tried and true failures, we decide.
My boy no longer dreads Father’s Day.
He knows it’ll be a day of silliness and shenanigans and advice he may never use, but it’s still important to hear. You’re a good man, I tell him. Any FaMo would agree with me. Be kind if you can, but fight if you must. Chances are great that if you win, you’ll only need to fight once. Except for your mother. If you fight with her, she will keep coming back.
I realize that I’ve started looking forward to Father’s Day too. My frustration with Father’s Day was not about spending a limited budget on a guy that could care less but was more about seeing my little man’s pain. I’ll never be able to erase the actions of a careless parent, but I can make the day fun. Celebrating FaMo or MoFa allows us to honor traditions in non-traditional ways. We can use these to discuss old expectations.
Safe parents clean up tears and vomit.
Single parents set examples that our kids will follow. We’re often the safe parents cleaning up on Aisle 4 after the other parent takes the fun pieces.
Safe parents carry tantrum-throwing kids away from noncustodial visit dropoffs. We may or may not bribe them with McDonald’s takeout. We give hugs when exasperated, read bedtime books when exhausted, and spend each weekend at endless soccer games.
Safe parents get the rage, the tears, the sadness, the full court of emotions because they. are. safe. Other parents may take the easy parts of their kids. Safe parents love it all. The sticky, whiny, feverish, and frustrated. From sea to shining sea.
My son is now an adult. Along the way, he realized that his father might not be the knight in shining armor he always thought him to be. Watching him come to terms with those realizations included many days of grief and required me to do my own emotional work to support him. The process was very different from the way I imagined his seeing the truth. I’m glad now that the truth evaded him for so long.
I celebrate the hero worship he could have for a daddy that could very rarely be present. What a huge gift of hope he gave himself.
Fatherless Father’s Days or motherless Mother’s Days are just one obstacle single parents can face. Changing my inner story from frustration to silliness allowed my son and me to experience these holidays with joy. I only wish I’d learned the lesson earlier. But alas, FaMos and MoFas are not perfect. Darn it. Or, maybe it’s just me? I could probably still learn to fish.
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