Abby Bergman has an ax to grind. An LGBT activist “all her
life,” according to her bio,
[1]the high school junior is also
the daughter of a lesbian couple, and as a result … thinks we should
chuck Father’s Day out the window.
Bergman just wrote a Father’s Day piece (read, an anti-Father’s Day piece) for the Huffington Post called “Celebrating Father’s Day With Two Moms [2],” in which she whined that the traditional holiday was not quite inclusive enough. Although nothing stopped her from honoring “all the typical ‘father things’ that my moms do for me every day,” Bergman still managed to gripe.
She began by complaining that she felt “left out” when her grade school classmates made Father’s Day gifts. This “separated” her from her friends who had dads, she pouted. “I continued to participate in the festivities and even once brought an uncle to a father's day party,” Bergman explained. “While I love my uncle, ultimately it is weird to honor my uncle on Father's Day, just because he's a man,” she admitted.
Bergman also didn’t like the fact that her friends were part of a daddy-daughter group she couldn’t participate in. “I wanted to join, my friends seemed like they were having a lot of fun.” But finding a “male figure” in her life to join with her was “really unappealing” to Bergman.
Her conclusion? Not that every child deserves both a father and mother [3] – not at all. Bergman would rather see male-specific parent appreciation days – like Father’s Day – get scratched off the calendar. “I don't deny that we need a day to recognize our parents – maybe even more than one,” claimed Bergman, “But in our modern society shouldn't we be able to celebrate a holiday that includes everyone? Families come in all shapes and sizes.”
Dads don’t deserve a day specially dedicated to them, it seems. Bergman argued that we shouldn’t be “pressured by society (and Hallmark) to recognize a parent of a particular gender.” What would she prefer? Well, she would really like it if “if we all use every day to thank and honor all of our parents.”
A world where nobody gets honored for anything special – just everybody gets honored everyday for everything? Sure Abby, that sounds great. Of course, she didn’t actually ever mention getting rid of Mother’s Day – but maybe that wouldn’t fly so well with her “two moms.”