The View from Here: Dads need to relax on Father’s Day
It’s Father’s Day, and what do you get the person who probably has everything you could possibly afford?
If it’s anything comparable to a father of a teen-age girl I was talking to earlier this week, it’s a break. It seems a break from mowing the lawn, fixing the car, aggravations at work, or busting one’s knuckles doing all of those things are what fathers really want. And maybe a steak.
Then there is a financial break from the burdens of having a teen-age daughter.
Specifically, the father casually mentioned costs of creating an athletic, smiling cheerleader, and the price was a high one. The pitch of his voice continued to rise as he continued to speak. It waned when he finally said he’s being left out of the picture as far as how much it’s costing and wondered out loud if him being left out of the exact financial tally might be the best all-around solution.
If you made $10 per hour, it would take you more than two weeks at work, full-time, to come up with the cash he reported has been spent on this activity. His figured pushed $1,000. Imagine a single mother paying that.
I’ve never thought of myself as someone old enough to have a great personal perspective on how much things have changed. But for my generation, it took a lot for us to ask our dads for the $40 required just for cheerleading shoes, worn for one season.
It was hard to ask because we knew some of our dads were breaking their backs in a hot factory that only got hotter as the day went on, with overtime.
When our dads came home from work, they just wanted to relax. When they got us summer jobs at their workplaces, we learned why. After those experiences, we finally had the much-needed and never addressed answers as to why they were always so tired.
It must be a lot tougher for fathers to relax today. Even if they don’t work in a blue-collar environment, $1,000 is still quite a bit of money and there are undoubtedly those who won’t even try out because they know the costs.
In an ideal world, everyone who was talented enough could participate. It seems when there is a high price attached to a sport, a group is produced that reflects that their parents can afford it. And if they can’t, any teen-age girl can tell you it’s not a fun place to be.
And beyond the sticker shock, maybe the parents can’t really afford it, but they go along anyway because they don’t want to deal with the repercussions of letting their hopefuls down.
I don’t know what the practical solution is. It depends upon if the high price is something that is needed to allow the team’s existence at all, if it is incidental to the sport or if it’s just someone out there pushing a squad for the perfect routine.
But one thing is true. If it were my dad, he’d be saying no to that luxury, and the no would probably have been echoed by my friends’ parents. Let the few fortunate ones go to an elective camp and come back and teach the rest the new routine. You didn’t have to be affluent to cheer and many would have frowned upon the connotation.
Or, if we were any sort of spirited cheerleaders at all, otherwise qualified until we got left behind because of mandatory costs, we would have rallied until the community decided that cheerleading mattered enough to make it equitable for all.
Maybe it’s a Father’s Day gift that needs to be thought about some more. It might be the best Father’s Day gift of all to allow dads to relax their voices again when it comes to this subject and simply watch their little girls grow up without all the aggravation.
It may take some time, but I always thought that’s what all the steaks and barbecues were about.
(Amy Satterwhite is a reporter for the Standard. She can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].)