Yesterday my son took me and his grandfather to the local lake for an afternoon of friends, grilling, fishing, playing with twigs, grass, discovering gravity, and bocce ball – all major feats when your sixteen months old! 😛

Sometime in the middle of the packed day – I think it was after playing horseshoes with Wes but before the steak and shrimp…. But anyway, sometime during the outing I couldn’t help but reflect on the nature of our celebrating as compared to Mothers’ Day.

• Mothers’ Day is usually expressed as day in which mothers get a day to themselves without their children.
• Fathers’ Day, on the other hand, is normally expressed by a family outing with the father playing with the children.

When I mentioned this to the growing crowd of decadent revelers surrounding the barby, my wife calmly mentioned that this was because mothers are usually stuck at home with no escape while fathers usually don’t get enough time hanging out with their children.

Then she handed me my son…..

Just kidding – I actually reached for my boy as he wanted to go play with his daddy – something his daddy wishes he could do more of…

I guess there is a lot of truth behind Emily’s observations…yet, I can’t help but think about how cool it would be if mothers were able to have more ‘days off’ throughout the year while dads were able to spend more time with their children.

Why must we (as a culture) wait for a ‘holiday’? Why can’t we do it throughout the year?