What the left doesn’t want you to do on Father’s Day — and what you should do

Father’s Day should be — as every holiday should — nonpolitical. The trouble is, for the far-left, strong, honorable men are a problem — and not just because fewer and fewer men are voting for Democrats.

To put dilemma for the left plainly: Father’s Day is, at its essence, a celebration of what all fathers do as protectors, providers, and enforcers of codes of conduct. A father is, at his best, a benevolent but formidable mentor to his children and a strong partner to his wife.

Strong fathers know there is an actual right and wrong and they raise their children by these complex but very real values. This is why we celebrate Father’s Day. We are heralding what honorable men bring to families and then to American society as a force of strength and stability.

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That should not be controversial, but this is precisely why the left calls manliness toxic and constantly denounces what they deem to be the patriarchy. Men with principles — people who insist on due process, a clear application of our laws, and that there are biological differences between the sexes — are remedies to the left’s current politics.

They left knows that strong families in general, and strong fathers in particular, refuse to take a knee to nonsense like boys with makeup on taking over girls’ sports.

This also explains why the left has no problem with breaking apart the nuclear family. Strong fathers are, after all, an impediment to left’s zest for control via dependency on government, as good fathers demand their children be accountable, honorable, and self-reliant.

Indeed, it is no small aside to note that instead of having or even allowing a nuanced discussion about the two-parent household — along with the caveat that some small percentage of marriages are too unhealthy for anyone involved — the left treats fatherless homes as simply being a good thing. They do this even though children (boys especially) do better on every metric when they have a father in the home to help them control and properly focus their growing egos.

Of course, the political left does not mind if we only treat Father’s Day commercially. If this holiday’s depiction of manhood only runs as deep as what socks we should buy dad along with the silly card (not that there is anything wrong with socks and cards), then this holiday is not a threat to their efforts to shackle the masculinity of strong husbands, fathers, and men.

It is a problem for the left that Father’s Day is a way of saying thank you to the strength and sacrifices of hero dads — the ones who take the time to coach the team, to take their children outdoors for adventures, and to introduce them to real heroes.

Because I know my now 13-year-old son needs heroes to show him the way, I researched and wrote Cool Heroes for Boys — 20 True Tales of Adventure. It is perhaps not surprising that these 20 heroes have almost all been cancelled by the left — not that I picked them because of that reason, but when you look for strong, honorable men to write about you inevitably chose individuals the left would like to do away with.

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Indeed, the left spent 2020 literally tearing statues of many of these heroes out of the public square.

So, with all of that said, how do we teach and learn what the left doesn’t want us talking about on Father’s Day?

An important antidote to the left’s anti-strong-father prescription is to celebrate our heroes. This is particularly easy and important on our nation’s 250th bash. John Hancock was the first to sign the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, and he famously signed it with large letters knowing he could be hung as a traitor by the British for doing so — that’s manly stuff.

So, if you’re wondering what to get your father, ask yourself who your father’s heroes are or could be. Great gifts — historical biographies, prints, films — flow from this understanding. I even once bought my father an historically accurate musket for Father’s Day. (He loved it!) Or go to Boston with your father and walk the Freedom Trail. (I did that with my son last year on the anniversary of the "shot heard ‘round the world.") Or go to Gettysburg and see where so many stood up for what they believed in — my favorite place at this battlefield is Col. Joshua Chamberlain’s wall on Little Round Top at the Gettysburg National Military Park. (I once went there with my father.) Or chose any number of other meaningful destinations centered on our heroes.

As long as what you do is real, it’ll disrupt the left’s fake narratives about fathers and who we are as a nation and people — and that’s a good thing!