Well, I’ll admit that I have never been one for what I have considered to be Hallmark holidays. Those are days like Mothers Day, Fathers Day and well Administrative Professionals’ Day (formerly Secretary’s Day) for that matter.

If you ask my wife she will tell you that I have even said things like “Valentine’s Day is every day and I don’t need no stinking third party to force me to express my love for you on a certain day of the year…bla, bla, bla.”. I know pretty lame right? I will say that I have not lived a double standard and always downplayed the idea of fathers day too.

Well as I get older, and I guess wiser for that matter, I have warmed up to these days of celebrating and appreciating others hard work. I have come to realize that if we did not have them spelled out a lot of folks would pretty much never get any official recognition or appreciation for what they do. The other fact is we now are running at a non stop pace and are working longer hours and the emphasis on our home life and parenting has really been de-prioritized.

It is that last point that has been most at work on me in recent years because I have been running a business and it seems like every waking hour has been dedicated to just that, work. Sure I become a dad in the mornings when I make my son breakfast and get him ready for school and then again and at night when it’s bath time etc. Weekends too have been shortened with regards to having time to be a dad. Sunday has usually been split with work and family and I am quite often prepping for the busy week ahead. I rarely even had time to take off during the week to go and see my son’s school activities.

Well I decided this year to change that and I have also changed my idea on the Hallmark holiday thing too. I am now making time to leave the office and go to my son’s events at school, I made sure mother’s day was a bigger event in our house [I need to up my game there even more I think.] and will except the fact that I can be recognized as a father on fathers day too.

My first official Fathers Day event was yesterday at my son’s school at 2pm. Yes that’s right in the middle of my work day and normally I would have rebuffed the event to complete the weeks work and would have somehow justified it as a necessity, you know providing for the family and all. I decided that I would ask my wife to stay home even though she was invited to the school event. She always goes and I knew that I would have hid behind her when I got there. This was a Fathers Day event and I was going to go full force on it and that meant solo.

When I got there there were a ton of other dads and they all brought their wives. Slightly rattled that maybe I should have done the same I pushed on. The agenda included snacks, making a home made sailboat and racing it, songs from the kids and a few marginally fatherly related things. It was pretty fun and I must admit making the boat with my done and totally over engineering the sail was fun.

I took pride in the fact that I went solo and was in full “dad mode.” The work that needed to be done in that time? Well, I just put the hustle on in the morning and made sure I had it all done in time to go to the event.

Now tomorrow is Father’s Day and I will enjoy what my wife and son have planned  for me. I may not be the dad in “My Three Sons” but I am a dad none the less and I am making sure that more time in the day is spent as such.

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