This sounds like an old-fashioned, “take my mother-in-law” type joke, but is the antithesis of funny: one in five British people would swap their dad for a better model. This is according to a new survey ahead of – you guessed it – Father’s Day in the UK, which also revealed that one in three pretend they have a better relationship with their dad than they really do. Many admitted they buy Father’s Day cards out of obligation rather than love, too. Oof.
As a result of this research, online retailer Thortful has launched a campaign called “Dad’s not perfect, but …” to challenge the stereotype of the “Best Dad Ever”, with a much more honest range of cards.
The company’s founder and CEO, Andy Pearce, said they provide a chance for customers to “mark Father’s Day in a way that reflects their actual relationship, not the one they feel they are supposed to have”.
While authenticity is, typically, to be applauded, and some of the options are a good compromise – “Dad, my therapist says thanks for all the business” – others are brutal. They include “Happy Father’s Day to a stranger with half my DNA” and “Father’s Day – I hope you enjoy doing nothing … you’ve had plenty of practice” and even the succinct, “Worst Dad Ever”. Surely at that point you’d just save your money?
Father’s Day has only been a struggle for me since mine died in 2012. He wasn’t perfect, but … I was very fortunate – he was a lovely, funny, caring dad and we had a great relationship. For the first few years after he was gone, that third Sunday in June when everybody else celebrated their fathers was a painful, extremely unnecessary reminder of what I’d lost, but at least then I could sit it out. When I had a baby, and had to make Father’s Day happen for my husband – also a lovely, funny, caring dad – it felt almost perverse.
Thankfully my dad gave me lots of advice, which I live by to this day. Some talk about regrets on their deathbed, mistakes, opportunities they desperately wish they hadn’t missed. On his, my dad gripped my hand, looked deep into my eyes and whispered, “Set up autopay for the congestion charge.” I am regularly grateful I heeded this solid gold guidance, and now avoid the hefty fine for forgetting to stump up. Other wisdom was passed down throughout my childhood. I’d always heard him saying, “Never trust the driver in front of you if they’re wearing a hat”, but it wasn’t until I was old enough to take the wheel myself that I understood how accurate it was. Don’t ask me why, I don’t make the rules, I just observe them (unlike all drivers in hats). When someone next cuts you up, tailgates, or performs a wild manoeuvre with no warning or indication, take a proper look at them and I guarantee: chapeau.
My dad also introduced the concept of items being “too new” to use for an indiscriminate amount of time after purchasing. The idea of immediately putting on a jumper you’ve just bought, filling a new vase with flowers, is clearly positively indecent. You need to allow the objects to acclimatise to their new surroundings, and vice versa. This made so much sense to me I was stunned to discover it wasn’t universal policy, and was openly aghast when a schoolfriend’s mum served dinner on plates straight from her shopping bag. Sadly it’s impossible to say whether she consequently changed her ways because, for some mysterious reason, I was never invited round again.
I’ve inherited my dad’s love of cats, potatoes and neatness. I can practically feel his blood coursing through my veins whenever I straighten a picture hanging askew, or turn a loo roll round so it’s correct (flap hanging over not under), or scream at my family that if they put the bloody thing back in the place it goes they will know where it is the next time they need it. Unpopular as I may be making myself, I love that connection to him, the certainty that this is what he would have wanted.
It will never not suck that my dad isn’t here any more, that life, let alone Father’s Day, has the audacity to carry on without him. In the early, bleakest days of grief I wondered if it really was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, because it didn’t seem like it. Now, 14 years later, I feel proud, and unbelievably lucky, to know that unlike the one in five, I wouldn’t have swapped my dad for anything.
Polly Hudson is a freelance writer