Father's Day 2.0

Today marks my third Father's day as a dad. If you count CA being preg with the boy as a celebrateable then its the fourth, but the kidless "we're gonna be parents" feeling always seemed awkward to me. First, to those of you saying, "Happy Father's day," Thank you and please consider the sentiment returned where appropriate. Second, I have some suggestions on how we can improve Father's day. Seeing as how I'm a dude, I don't think my "improving" things should come as a surprise to anyone.

There are three main propositions I have regarding Father's day. Recognition, Timing and Qualification.

Recognition: I don't think I'm the bestest dad ever... Well, I sorta do, as I have mentioned before, but I see other dads and my own dad and see them doing things that I want to do. Some of these things come with age of the kiddos, and some require me stepping things up.

I have a friend named Bill. He has three teenagers who think he is the best guy ever. And so they should, cause he is a really cool dude and a great dad. Obviously I can't do things yet with my kids that he does with his, but I see him and it gives me ideas and goals. Many of my friends are teaching their kids a second language. I am trying to do that, but I'm not exactly fluent when it comes to habla-ing the Espanol. Nevertheless, I am trying.

What does this have to do with recognition? I think there should be some more perks short term for dads. (I feel the same should go for moms too on Mothers day, but I'm not a mom.) Can we get this holiday federally recognized? Maybe not a paid holiday but can a brother get a 3-day weekend at least? If we are celebrating dad's give them some time to celebrate. Also, maybe a parade. Not Macy's Thanksgiving size... At first. But maybe some local parades where the floats indicate what local dads are doing. A float of a dad and his kids having a catch, while actually having a catch on the float sounds wicked cool to me. Rather than a lame giant balloon of Charlie Brown, maybe one of Bill, or my dad, or someday (Dare I be so crass? Yes, I dare.) me? Everybody loves a parade. I'm especially jazzed about this idea after watching some of the Mavericks Championship Parade.

Timing: Speaking of The Dallas Mavericks (Did I mention they were the 2011 Champions? GO MAVS!) It makes me think, what is something Dads as a whole stereotypically like? Sports! Baseball is the only option for sports to watch on Father's day. So I propose we go back to the coupon system. Remember when you made your mom a coupon book cause you were too broke for a nice gift and chores are free? Same idea, but for Father's day. So if you don't dig baseball, or waiting a million hours for a seat in a restaurant in June, you can pull out the coupon for Father's day whenever. If you wanted to be uninterrupted to watch the Bruins crush the Canucks... Coupon. Go fishing for a whole day when tuna are running? Coupon. Its a Sunday football game and the Cowboys are playing the Redskins and SOMEBODY is gonna get beat... bad! (I would like to note I purposely took no side here, though I am a Cowboy fan because Bill and his wife are Redskins fans. Especially his wife Sherrie.) You guessed it! COUPON!

Overall I think the flexibility of the day should reflect the interests of the dad. There are just some things you can't do in June.

Also, maybe make the coupon split up! 24, 1 hour segments would be ridiculous. Who want's to keep track of that? Also, the level of abuse is unimaginable. "Honey, can you take out the trash?" One hour coupon!

I propose it can break into 4, 6 hour segments. Is it fair that I have to sleep for half of Father's day? NO! As a father of two kids under four years old, I can testify that sometimes sleep time is daddy time. I grudgingly accept that part of being a dad is being old. I can't stay up to all hours like I used to. I feel I should be able to capitalize on a full 24 hours of Father's day. With this, I can watch the Canucks lose, and the Mavs win. Double prizes! At best this buys 4 solid afternoons which I believe to be fair.

Having mentioned the coupon idea, I would now like to extrapolate it. Which brings me to...

Qualification: Uncle Ben said, "With great power comes great responsibility."

*Deep theatrical sigh*

You don't know who Uncle Ben is? Not the rice guy. Ben Parker. Spiderman's uncle. Go rent the movie if you haven't seen it. Its solid.

Now the math guy in me says there is an equation afoot. If power=responsibility then the reverse is also true responsibility=power. Negotiating is the art of turning power into rewards. So if power can be turned into rewards, our equation now becomes responsibility=rewards.

Where am I going with all this? Thank you for asking!

Like I said, this is my third Father's Day as a dad, but I've celebrated two of them with two kids instead of one. It seems that there should be indication of the added child. A guy who is a lousy father of one, right now, gets a day of recognition the same as I do. I have double the kids he does. Arguably I work harder that he does. Or Bill who has three kids? Or unnamed guy I haven't mentioned yet and probably won't mention again who has 4 or 5 kids? I'm thinking you give credit where credit is due.

Remember those coupons? I again propose a mathematic solution. The Fibonacci sequence 1-1-2-3-5... but fractionized. For the first two kids you get a full coupon each. The third a 1/2 the fourth a 1/3 ect.

I know you think I'm crazy. But its, "Why can't we slice the bread before we package it?" Crazy.

Under this new method, each year (for now) I am entitled to 2 days in coupons per year. Bill gets 2 and a half. Unnamed gets 2 5/6 which we can round to 3.

Now, why have I gone to such lengths? Here is the thought that blows the mind.

What if these coupons worked like rollover minutes?

A guy can take a pass on ties for a few years and bide his time till the kids are in Junior High School. "What are you doing next week dude?" "Pssh that's October, 2017... I'm going to Vegas for a month for Father's Day!"

While I realize some of these ideas are less feasible, a guy can dream. Also, dreaming takes time and I am thankful to my lovely wife for wrangling the kids and giving me time to write this. Happy Fathers Day to all the dads out there.