It's Time to Reform Father's Day

This afternoon, I was shopping at one of those shopping malls, when I noticed an overabundance of "World's Best Dad" t-shirts, mugs, barbecue supplies, and a plethora of other flimflam.  Sure, it's easy to say to dad, "You're the best!" but what does that even mean?  Without metrics or any kind of objective evaluation, it's merely a platitude. 

The children of our nation face an uncertain future.  Parents have let them fall further and further behind the Chinese children with their superior tiger parents.  Yet, as I looked in this Hallmark Store, I found not a single "Pretty Good Dad", "Adequate Dad", or "Needing Improvement Dad".   I would estimate that about half the dads in this country are adequate and maybe 1/3 of them could be called good.  At best 5% of the dad's could be called very good, but great?  I would expect less than 1% of dads could truly be called great.  The odds that 30 of that select group would all have children shopping in the shopping mall I was in, seems slight at best.

We at Last Stand for Children First love dads.  We believe they're one of the two most important people in a child's life.  That's why, we don't do any favors for the really good dads, when we call all of them great.   What incentive do parents have to strive for greatness when they're not rated any higher than mediocre fathers who don't even require their children to learn to play a sport or practice the piano?  Until, we find a way to evaluate parenting fairly and without sentimentality, the children are the real losers and that is a shame.