In Depth
Consumers
Is Father's Day becoming the new Mother's Day?
Last Updated June 14, 2007
Tara Kimura, CBC News
Consider the necktie, which has lost its position as the gold standard of Father's Day gifts — a fading emblem of the working father's role as both breadwinner and authority figure. Now, with diapering dads and papas who potty train, modern fathers are being feted in a new, more personal way.
The image of the breadwinning father looking in on the family is quickly becoming a thing of the past thanks to the expanded role dads now play, says Neil Campbell, a psychiatry professor and director of Dads Can.
"We're seeing more of an involved, responsible father now than we did before," said Neil Campbell, a psychiatry professor at the University of Western Ontario and the director of Dads Can, an organization that promotes involved parenting.
"Before, he was sort of looking in through the window at the family.… We had equated mothering as parenting or parenting as mothering," he said.
But many fathers today see parenting as a collaborative effort, with nurturing and responsibilities shared equally between mothers and fathers, Campbell said. This shift has accordingly affected the way children celebrate their fathers, bringing it closer to the way mothers are celebrated on their day.
"I think there are more and more dads who see it as a family-centred time and it's really the children being with him. He wears his children, so to speak, and not a tie," Campbell said.
Cheaper gifts not a measure of affection
Retail analyst James Smerdon, a senior associate with Colliers Hudema Consulting, said that consumers will spend an average of $90 to $100 on Father's Day, about 60 per cent of what is spent on Mother's Day.
While it's true that consumers tend not to spend as much on Father's Day as they do for Mother's Day, that's partly a function of practicality and not necessarily a lesser measure of affection, some experts say.
Robin Ritchie, a marketing professor at the Richard Ivey School of Business, said that while consumers tend to favour flowers for mothers, they buy no-frills, utilitarian gifts for fathers because that's what dads prefer.
"A symbolic gift for dad just doesn't fly as well as it does for mom," Ritchie said. "To get a functional gift is simply tougher to begin with, so therefore, it's tougher to get something for Dad. With Mom, the answer is easy — for Dad, it's not at all so obvious."
Then there's the promotional aspect of each day. Richie said marketers were able to make Mother's Day into a big event because of the obvious hook of the mother-child bond.
"[Marketers] started with Mother's Day because that was the one that felt like the low-hanging fruit. And so I guess what you see is not only were the conditions more ripe for an effective marketing campaign, but because it seemed easier, marketers put more of their effort into it," he said.
With the sales potential of Mother's Day nearing capacity, marketers may soon shift their focus, Richie said.
"I think that to the extent that if Mother's Day is really tapped out, then you can see marketers imagining that there are some untapped opportunities in Father's Day," he said.
Dad no longer the family's punchline
Greeting cards have changed in tone and sensibility, with writers now taking a sentimental, softer approach.
The shift in dad's image is made clear in the cards people give. Pat Sandy, a program director for American Greetings — sold through Carlton Cards in Canada — said his company has changed course and is trying to represent modern dads and the roles they play in their children's lives.
"We try to take Father's Day sort of as a reflection on society. With the expanded parenting role of dads today, I think that speaks to a more softer approach overall, really, in our world," he said.
Sandy, who has been producing cards for 24 years, said fewer cards today make fathers the ultimate punchline.
"The cards have evolved to a more softer type of humour, more similar to Mother's Day sentiment," he said.
"We still do our standard yuk-yuk kind of humour, the fart jokes and all that kind of thing, but I think, in recent years, research has told us to expand our humour mindset to be more inclusive in terms of the different perceptions of dad in this day and age."
Signs of change are becoming increasingly apparent in all forms of media, Campbell said, noting that bumbling fatherhood icons like Homer Simpson are becoming dated.
"We don't goof the dad as much as we used to. I think we're beginning to really realize the importance of him in the parenting equation of raising a family," he said.
The change is in part related to the fact that many men are becoming dads later in life and have accordingly had more time to establish themselves in the workplace. New fathers are less likely to sacrifice family time for overtime, Campbell said.
What we're seeing now is a new generation of dads who say their fathers were present in the delivery room and were more accessible to them growing up, he added.
"It isn't the old traditional view that my father was out working and wasn't around," he said.
"We're beginning to notice that sort of shift that is 50-50 and that somehow the child grows up in the space between."
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