It was Father’s Day morning, and my friend and I were comparing notes on whose offspring were the least prepared: if you thought children were useless, may I introduce you to adolescents? “I couldn’t put a card and some felt-tips in front of them,” she said, “they’re teenagers; they’re not nine.” “So have they made cards?” “Nope.” I am expressly forbidden from writing about my daughter, so let’s just square her off with the statement that she is perfect in every way, and her Father’s Day efforts were second to none.
The rest of them, sheesh. My daughter’s best friend said the problem with dads is that they don’t want anything, then amended that to: they either want some speakers for £5,000 or they want a glass of water, there’s nothing in between. Then it hit her that she could get her dad some chocolates. “Does he like chocolate?” I asked, sceptically, because, in my experience, a lot of parents prefer to get their sugar from alcohol. “Everyone likes chocolate,” she said, with unbridled confidence. My son ignored all the helpful links I’d sent him – a plectrum holder in the shape of a tiny guitar; a hat – and said the true gift of Father’s Day was that his dad had grown a whole person to watch the football with. I said, “Oi, I half grew you and football was nowhere in my intentions” and he said: “And yet, here I am, going to watch the football.”
My stepdaughter disappeared in the middle of lunch, went to the Co-op, and came back with a bunch of carnations and a fruit cake. Her dad said, “I thought you’d lost your wallet?”, and she said, “I’ve still got your card”. Then, ceremonially, she handed him back his Visa, saying, “look, I made you a card.”
People talk a lot about the emotional labour of motherhood, but this doesn’t feel like labour exactly, so much as … you know that chimp matriarch, whose job it is to go through everybody’s coat, hair by hair, looking for fleas, and then as soon as she’s finished, start again, because there are always more fleas? Whatever the word for that is, that’s Father’s Day.
Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
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