How I ruined Father's Day

We usually don't "do" Father's day, because up until now I only had one view of it, and to put it as plainly and crudely as I can, up until this year, I always saw Father's day as a made up day that is solely intended to lessen the importance of mothers. Father's day is how men are trying to steal our one day a year that recognizes the fact that motherhood is a tough job, and that women are the only ones who do it properly.
Okay, I was always aware that there are single dads raising their kids alone somewhere in the world, and I salute them. Truly I do. But they are the exception and I am talking about the rule. Motherhood is damn hard, and we deserve our day. What we don't deserve is all this men coming in and trying to belittle it. Because that is what Father's day does. It belittle Mother's day.
Why? because mothers are the ones who do all the heavy-lifting. They are the ones that deal with all the mundane, less-fun aspects of parenting; they are the ones who makes sure the house, the kids, the husband, they all run smoothly, while fathers gets a thank you for, well, just showing up.
Also, Hidai doesn't care about it so passionately so he lets it be.
What changed this year? Why did I decide this year to abandon my views and organize a Father's day for Hidai?
It was a combination of a few things actually, with the whole discussion about the "men deserts" & the million kids with no dads in the UK and some reminders about what bad fathers can cause, I sat Hidai down and asked him about his take on the whole fatherhood subject, as someone who is both a father, and a son, and as someone who wanted to do things differently than was done before.
Hidai said, fatherhood is mainly about choices. Although it is true that mothers can also choose not to be there, with fathers it is more socially acceptable to be at work until after bedtime, to be busy over the weekends, to be less involved in your child's life, to not know what's going on in school, to not know who your child's friends are, and also to not be there at all. To be honest, he was talking more about life in Israel than in Gib and the UK, mainly because that is where we grew up, and because that is where we became parents. And also because we found it to be more prominent there than in Gib or London.
For men, he said, it's more complicated today than in the past. We expect more from them - to be good husbands, fathers & workers - but most men grew up in houses where these expectation did not exist. They are in uncharted territory.
It dawned on me. It dawned on me that I am part of the problem. That this view is what allows fathers to be content with just showing up. It is what allows men to not have to work harder at home, or with their kids, or with their wives.
I have two boys, who someday (hopefully) will become fathers and make me a grandma, and I want for my boys what every parent wants for his kids - better. To have a better life, to have better option, to be better people. And it's up to me, up to us, to make sure they will get there. It's hard work, making sure they will get to that "better", and it's up to Hidai & me. We are the role models here. I look at them, and as young as they are now, I know the years fly by, I know that teenagers (and twenty-something boys) don't listen to their parents, and I also know how important it is to plant the seeds now.
How could I demand responsibility and accountability from them later, when they will be fathers themselves, if I don't raise them that fathers are important? That fatherhood is about more than just showing up? If I am not setting the right example?
So I figured that maybe we should make more of an effort with Father's day to remind us to stop once in a while and look at the choices we make, the role models we set for our kids.
For me, it was also a chance to say thank you to Hidai, who has managed to do just that, and ignore everything else in his personal history and the society he lived in to become the best dad I know from the moment Ron was born. He won't like it if I gushed about him here, and anyway it's his story and not mine to tell, but he does deserve a thank you.
BUT
As we Jewish people like to say - man plans and God laughs. As luck would have it, after a few very good and illness-free months, I was sick from Wednesday onwards, and all my plans went right down the drain. That is why, in the end, even though after being kind of a single-dad for almost a week, and taking care of an annoying me to boot (I get really grumpy and unhelpful when I am sick. REALLY unhelpful. I don't do the I'm gonna die thing, just the it's the end of the world, my life sucks, nobody loves me anymore routine) he deserved a Father's day more than ever, what he got was a card from each of us (Yon's nursery made them cards for Father's day. I didn't get nursery cards for Mother's day. Not fair.), a brownie (each got one), and one gift.

Father's Day celebration

He didn't get the cake I wanted to bake him, he didn't get a fancy lunch (though he did get pizza. But that was because, like I said, he was in charge of everything and so 3 nights in a row we had Pizza Night), and he didn't get the gift he wanted (because I needed to get out of the house for that).

Pizza for the ill

He did take the kids on a playdate in the afternoon and had to listen to me cry all evening about how the kids hate me and my life is worthless.

Playdate kids

Best Father's Day Ever!