The Ethics of Father’s Day

Of all of the so-called “Hallmark Holidays” – events which are said to benefit people who own greeting card shops more than anyone else – probably the least well observed is Father’s Day. It isn’t clear why this holiday is treated much more casually than its counterparts, but several observers have noted that there are fewer universal expressions of Father’s Day – you can always get your mother flowers and a card, for example, or offer to do chores around the house, but it’s harder to shop for a man, and many of us are perceived as not doing housework in the first place. By the same token, men are more likely to be resistant to fuss, particularly when it is made over us, and some would prefer to have a day in which they are not particularly acknowledged, but are instead left alone to do as they please. If either of these contentions is correct, then I believe we should at least consider the ethics of the holiday itself…

As I noted in my post about the Ethics of Mother’s Day (May11, 2009) it’s hard to argue against the existence of any holiday that involves commerce on ethical grounds, given that the opportunity to sell merchandise contributes to the economy in general and to all of the companies involved and their stakeholders in particular. Even the purchase of a relatively inexpensive gift like a greeting card generates revenue for the retail store that sold it, the shipping company that delivered it, the printing company that printed it, the greeting card company that designed it, the paper mill that created the card itself, and the logging company that harvested the wood pulp in the first place, not to mention all of the other businesses that supplied those firms with everything from gasoline and machinery to accounting services and Internet access. When we add in all of the people who work for those companies, and all of the additional firms that supply the employees with their consumer goods, it seems clear that these sales have some far-reaching positive effects…

On the other side of the issue is the question of whether acknowledging a holiday that the putative recipient doesn’t want you to observe is ethically acceptable. Granted that some men are merely “protesting too much,” in the classic phrase, there are some men who really would prefer that you simply wish them a Happy Father’s Day and then drop the subject without further discussion. Unfortunately, between false modesty and the increasingly neurotic head games (yes means no and no means yes; I won’t tell you what’s wrong if you don’t already know, etc.) infesting our civilization, it’s often hard to be sure of what your course of action should be. This can lead to bad feelings if you guess wrong, or even if you devote too much or too little effort to the acknowledgement, and can legitimately be considered a negative consequence of the holiday. Even granted that the sort of people who would experience serious relationship issues over the correct observance (or non-observance) of Father’s Day would probably also experience serious relationship issues over corn flakes, the question of whether it is ethical for the various companies involved to create artificial social conventions, artificial relationship requirements, and artificial pressures to behave in ways that benefit those companies seems dubious at best…

Personally, I see a clear difference between the friendly acknowledgement of a minor holiday that honors the role of a male parent and the actions taken by male parents on behalf of their children, and advertising pressure that suggests (without actually saying) that you are a bad person and an ungrateful child if you don’t spend large sums of money on that parent. But I am not the world, and there are in fact people who do resent any such implications. So I have to ask, can we as business people ethically promote the observance of Father’s Day as an obligation borne by all children? Can we ethically promote the observance of the holiday at all? Should we discontinue sales, advertising reminders, and all other support for the event? Or should we accept that our customers are going to make their own choices, regardless of what we think, and make our goods and services available to those who want them without prejudice to the issue?

It’s worth thinking about…