Bah, Humbug!

When I was a child, I would celebrate Mother’s Day (officially declared a national holiday in 1914 by President Woodrow Wilson to be held on the second Sunday in May) by purchasing for my mother a bottle of cheap perfume. For Father’s Day, (officially declared a national holiday in 1972 by President Richard Nixon to be held on the third Sunday in June), I would purchase for my father a bottle of cheap cologne. I would inevitably ask, “When is Children’s Day,” and my parents would inevitably respond, “Every day is Children’s Day.” I always accepted this response without objection.

Now I am a father. My children have a mother. I think that everyday is Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and Children’s Day in our house. I wish it were so in every household, and we are far from the model American household. The declaration by Congress or any President setting aside any special day for mothers and fathers and children will not improve the lives of mothers and fathers and children who need substantive economic and social assistance from the government to actually have a better life. These special days are like our days of prayer: empty gestures that take the place of real action. I hate them.

So, we buy our perfumes and colognes, and make our cards and flower pots in schools, purchase prepared missives in the Hallmark stores, and leave our parents’ children in war zones, and deny health care and day care services to our mothers and fathers, and we drink our tea and coffee cast in our indifference like shells upon the shore, lost in our dangling conversation and superficial sighs.