Another Father’s Day come and gone – Atlanta Child Photographer

Father’s Day, that one day of the year that we are to show appreciation for all the fathers out there. Personally, I think that we should show our appreciation more than one day out of the year. I feel the same way about Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day. If you love and appreciate someone, this should be shown to them everyday but not necessarily in the form of gifts of cards or special dinners but other ways. Sometimes a little note telling someone how much you love and appreciate them can go a long way. 

My husband and I are not big celebrators of made up holidays. For holidays (and I use that term loosely) like Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, we usually just exchange cards and call it a day. The other day I was remarking with a friend of mine that what most parents want to do on Mother’s and Father’s Day is not necessarily be a mother or father for that day. What I mean by that, they don’t want to have to do anything for anybody else. I know I just like to relax and do things for myself because I’m usually the last person that gets tended to. Yes, I do understand that part of that is my fault and I’m working on it but still. The best gift for me is to do nothing. 

Anyway, this year was a little different. My husband wasn’t able to spend Father’s Day with us. He was actually out of state. Considering I had to send him a care package anyway, I snuck two Father’s Day cards in the package. He was so surprised by that little gesture and I could tell it meant a lot to him. It’s always nice when people think about you and I wanted to make sure that he knew that our son and I were thinking about him.

In my lifetime, I have gotten to know so many great dads. In fact, I know more great dads than I have pictures of. Of course, the first great dad is mine.

My parents got divorced with I was really young. I never really spent a lot of time with my dad because he made me nervous. I know that sounds weird but let me explain. My dad can be an existential thinker and he likes to ask existential questions. Well, he would often ask me, a 5-year-old, these types of questions. At the time, I thought my dad knew everything and my childish reasoning made me believe that I was supposed to know everything too. So, when I couldn’t answer any of his questions I felt embarrassed and stupid. To mitigate this from happening, whenever he entered a room, I would simply leave. At some point he told my sister that he thought I didn’t like him because of this.

Fast forward to my college years…one summer break I spent some time in Florida visiting my dad, bonus mom and sisters. That’s really when I got a chance to know him. We were able to talk about any and everything and if I didn’t have an answer, I knew I could just say, “I’ve never really thought about that before” and all would be okay. My theory is that my dad just didn’t know how to relate to children. He was an only child of two older parents and was always around older adults. If that doesn’t make it difficult to relate to other children, I don’t know what does. At any rate, my father is not only my dad but he’s my friend as well.

My brothers are also wonderful fathers. To be honest, I think it took them both a while to grow into the role, but once they did, it was a fantastic thing.

Of course, I can’t exclude my husband. Prior to us having our son, I must say that I was afraid that I would be the one that did EVERYTHING for our son. At that time, my husband had never even held a baby, let along taken care of one. I was thinking, “What am I getting myself in to?” Even though he tried to scam me once by constantly asking to observe while I changed a diaper “to make sure he would do it right” he turned out to be a great dad. He’s still a little rough around the edges but I’m here to help smooth them out.

Here are a few more great dads that I have the pleasure of knowing. Mind you, this is definitely not an exhaustive list. I don’t have images of every awesome dad I know.

“My father didn’t do anything unusual. He only did what dads are supposed to do—be there.” ~ Max Lucado