Let Fathers Have the Day

Father Fatigue at State Farm Arena: When Fathers Are in the Room but Still Unseen

By Kenneth Braswell
Fathers Incorporated, CEO

Father’s Day has always carried more than celebration. For some, it is joy. For others, it is grief. For many, it is a complicated holiday wrapped in memory, absence, anger, disappointment, healing, and hope. It is one of the few days on the calendar when we are asked to say something good, clear, and public about fathers, and yet even that simple act often seems to come with resistance.

For more than two decades, I have worked in the responsible fatherhood field, trying to reset the narrative about fathers. That work has meant pushing against stereotypes, lazy assumptions, clickbait headlines, painful personal stories turned into public indictments, and the old deadbeat dad narrative that too often becomes the only language people know when fathers are discussed. Some of the pain is real. Some of the anger is justified. Some fathers have caused wounds that cannot be dismissed. Accountability matters. Safety matters. Truth matters.

But so does recognition.

Father’s Day has never been Mother’s Day. I do not expect it to be. I do not think it needs to compete with Mother’s Day, imitate Mother’s Day, or become Mother’s Day with a different card aisle. Mothers deserve every flower, every brunch, every tribute, every public acknowledgment they receive. The question is not whether mothers are celebrated too much. The question is why fathers are so often celebrated with hesitation, qualification, or silence.

This Father’s Day weekend, I took my son to a WNBA game at State Farm Arena in Atlanta. We had been talking about going to see Angel Reese, and as it turned out, we also had the chance to see Caitlin Clark. It was a wonderful game. The talent was undeniable. The fundamentals, the energy, the pace, the crowd, the joy of women’s basketball on that stage made it a beautiful experience to share with my son.

And maybe that is why the silence bothered me so much.

Throughout the game, there were shout-outs, celebrity acknowledgments, timeout entertainment, halftime energy, and public recognition of people in the building. The arena knew how to celebrate. It knew how to pause and name what mattered. It knew how to recognize Juneteenth, which had taken place the day before. Yet somehow, on the day before Father’s Day, in an arena filled with men, fathers, children, families, and sons like mine sitting beside their dads, not once did I hear anyone say Happy Father’s Day.

Not once.

I sat there watching fathers with their children. Fathers with wives. Fathers with partners. Fathers who had bought tickets, found parking, stood in concession lines, explained the game, pointed out players, laughed with their kids, and made memories. Fathers were not absent from the room. They were everywhere. They simply went unnamed.

That is what stayed with me.

This is not about one arena, one team, or one event. It is about how easy it remains for institutions to overlook fathers even when fathers are standing right in front of them. Major events do not happen by accident. Someone plans the music. Someone plans the recognitions. Someone plans the video board. Someone plans the timing of every announcement. Which means, somewhere along the way, either no one thought to include Father’s Day, or someone thought it was not necessary.

Either way, the silence says something.

It made me wonder whether we are experiencing a kind of father fatigue. We hear phrases now like Black fatigue, as if the effort to name Black life, Black pain, Black excellence, and Black humanity has somehow become too much for people who were never asked to carry the weight of being unseen. I wonder if fathers are being pushed into a similar corner. Maybe people feel like we have talked about fathers enough. Maybe they believe that naming fathers is unnecessary. Maybe the word itself has become too complicated, too loaded, too uncomfortable.

But we cannot possibly be talking about fathers too much.

We talk about fathers when we need someone to blame. We talk about fathers when systems need a villain. We talk about fathers when legislation, funding, programs, and campaigns require a contrast. The deadbeat dad narrative has been one of the most durable shortcuts in American family policy. It is pulled out when convenient, repeated when useful, and rarely examined with compassion or data. Yet when it is time to speak of fathers with dignity, to recognize their presence, to affirm their effort, to celebrate their love, suddenly the room gets quiet.

That quiet is not neutral.

I have tried over the years to protect Father’s Day from becoming another day of frustration for me. I spend the other 364 days advocating for fathers, mothers, children, families, practitioners, policymakers, and communities. I want Father’s Day to be a day when I can simply breathe, receive, remember, and celebrate. Yet every year, something seems to interrupt the peace. Something reminds me that the work is still unfinished. Something reveals how far we still have to go before the public narrative around fathers is honest, balanced, and whole.

This year, it happened while sitting beside my son.

That is the part that makes it tender. I was not alone somewhere watching this from a distance. I was with my child. I was doing the very thing we ask fathers to do. I was present. I was engaged. I was creating a memory. And in that moment, the absence of acknowledgment was not theoretical. It was personal.

Father’s Day should not require fathers to defend themselves before they can be celebrated. It should not require us to soften the word father by replacing it with father figure every time we want to make the conversation more comfortable. This is not National Happy Father Figures Day. It is Father’s Day. Yes, father figures matter. Grandfathers matter. Uncles matter. Coaches matter. Mentors matter. Men who step into the gap matter. But there must still be room to say father without apology.

There must be room to honor the men who are trying.

There must be room to hold fathers accountable without erasing fathers who are present. There must be room to talk about harm without making love invisible. There must be room for safety, compassion, protection, provision, presence, and availability to live in the same conversation. There must be room to recognize that some fathers have failed and some fathers have fought like hell to stay connected to their children against systems, assumptions, poverty, legal barriers, co-parenting conflict, and their own unresolved pain.

The narrative does not become more truthful because it is negative. It becomes truthful when it is complete.

So on this Father’s Day, I am choosing to say what too many rooms still forget to say. Happy Father’s Day to the fathers who showed up when no one clapped. Happy Father’s Day to the fathers who are healing while parenting. Happy Father’s Day to the fathers who are trying to repair what was broken. Happy Father’s Day to the fathers who are learning how to be softer without becoming weaker. Happy Father’s Day to the fathers who carry the invisible labor of love, worry, discipline, protection, and presence.

Happy Father’s Day to the fathers who are in the building, even when the microphone does not call their name.

The work continues. Those who hear my voice will hear it. Those who are moved by it will be moved. Those who care will continue to stand with us. And those who scroll past the conversation may one day realize that what we are fighting for is not applause for men. We are fighting for a fuller understanding of family.

One day, I hope the positive truth of what fathers mean will not have to fight so hard to be heard over the negative stories people are more comfortable repeating.

Until then, I will keep saying it.

Fathers matter.