Fathers

Tuesday

Bill McMorris

The origin of Father’s Day

On his first day in office, President Trump signed executive orders to end DEI. Schoolchildren nationwide know that he has failed to deliver, for every June they must participate in the celebration of a federal holiday that only entered the national consciousness thanks to endorsements from ACLU radicals and Big Business eager to make a buck. Ever since Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd’s neck in 2020, the children’s art instructor has forced them to write paeans to a petulant overweight drunk. I’m speaking, of course, of Father’s Day. Father’s Day began in Washington State as a church service orchestrated by Sonora Smart Dodd, an adoring daughter who wanted to honor Dad for not falling to pieces when Mom died.

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Saturday

Marc Oestreich

Are we losing the American dad?

Over the past weeks, a cadre of young men has spent their days marching across the quad, demanding an end to a justifiable, nay honorable, Israeli war on amoral terrorists. An overlapping segment has donned their rainbow buttons and profile-art propaganda to honor the sexual proclivities of their fellow man. They scream borrowed sentiments in all caps, tapped self-righteously into the iPhones their parents have surely furnished. They take over streets and public spaces, inconveniencing the world around them. Their posters, wearing whatever slogan trends on social media, may as well say, “Look at me, world… but let me put the right filter on first.” These are the men of their generation. These are the next generation of American fathers.

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Wednesday

Bridget Phetasy

Dads rock

During the Q&A portion of a Jordan Peterson lecture I recently attended, host Konstantin Kisin presented a question from the audience: “My son was just born. How do I know how to be a father if I didn’t have a father? What makes a great father?” I’ve been thinking about that question ever since. As someone who spends entirely too much time online viewing the virtual culture wars play out on X/Twitter, I’ve noticed no one has more to say about relationships and raising children than the unmarried, childless peanut gallery that occupies the “manosphere.” Like every online genre, the loose collection of blogs, podcasts, forums and websites that constitute the manosphere exist on a spectrum.

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Saturday

Casey Chalk

Little league keeps me sane

There were runners on first and second. The batter hit a ball through the gap between the shortstop and third base, and off the runners went. Except the shortstop immediately got in the way of the runner coming from second, and started smacking him with a glove. The confused runner covered his head with his hands as he maneuvered around the shortstop, and barely made it to third base in time to beat the throw from left field. Such are the joys of little league baseball, of which I recently completed my third season of coaching. I approached the shortstop after that play, and explained to her that she was not allowed to tag the runner with her glove unless she actually had the ball. “Oh, I know,” she retorted. “I was trying to stop him from getting to third base.

Thursday

Amber Duke

A tribute to my father

This essay is adapted from a speech I gave on July 18, 2021, at a memorial for my father, Philip M. Athey, who passed away at the age of 59.  I’d like to tell you all a little about my dad. My dad was the hardest working, most honest and most loyal man I knew. He would do anything for his family. By the time I was four or five he was already teaching me how to play tee-ball, hook a worm, shoot a bow and turn a screw — righty tighty lefty loose-y! Some of my favorite memories with my dad are from when we would go hunting and fishing. I remember him showing me how to place my feet when walking in the woods so I didn’t spook the deer, or how to cast my pole so the bait would land perfectly under an old dock.

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Mary Eberstadt

Critical father theory

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, my stepfather worked as an auto mechanic in Upstate New York, at a ‘youth camp’ nestled in a pine forest. The bucolic sobriquet was a euphemism; this ‘camp’ was a medium-security pre-prison of sorts for boys 14-17, mostly from New York City, sent up following precocious encounters with the law. These youthful offenders were not the worst of the worst. Boys implicated in rape, murder or similarly terrifying offenses were assigned elsewhere, to compounds with barbed wire and armed guards. As it happened, campers liked to hang around the garage, and over the years, some who showed diligence and aptitude with tools were taken under my stepfather’s wing.