Today is Fathers Day here in Australia and there’s at least one positive thing that I have to say about the day. The wind and rain, that looked yesterday as though it had set in for the entire weekend, has given way to a beautiful clear day today.
As you may have picked up, my family and I don’t do Fathers Day. At least, my wife and I and our 3 kids don’t do Fathers Day. There are others in our extended family who insist on celebrating it with a family do. Now that’s all well and good for some, others not so much and quite frankly the fewer times I get put through the wringer that constitutes some of our dysfunctional family get togethers each year, the better.
To start things off Fathers Day and Mothers Day…and Valentines Day for that matter, are simply marketing ploys perpetrated by retail executives whose job it is to take as much of our money as they can. And there are any number of suckers out there. Surely you’ve noticed the number of hardware ads before Fathers Day, the jewelry store ads before Mothers Day and florist ads before Valentines Day. Retailers experience a lovely little spike in sales at strategically placed points throughout the year.
It’s not a coincidence that Valentines Day sits nicely between Christmas and Easter, Mothers Day sits between Easter and the mid-year sales (or clearance if you’re a brainwashed DJ’s devotee) and Fathers Day falls between mid-year sales and Christmas. Now they’re hanging guilt trips on those who don’t splash out the big bucks just because you splashed out some sperm.
So if you’re one of the suckers who have fallen for the commercial cons of Fathers Day, Mothers Day and Valentines Day, you seriously deserve everything you get. I mean it. You have been had and the retailers are laughing all the way to the bank.
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