Last year at this time we were in China, on our way to Dunhuang.  Marvelous.  I was not thinking then about Father’s Day, too absorbed in the moment.  But here I am today, at home, in the US, with all sorts of references to fathers and their day all around me.   What can be said?

    Confucius might say: "Good.  Children should respect their parents and elders, and a day for fathers fits the bill quite nicely."  But he also might say: "Why?  Why confine such respect to only one day a year?  Children should honor their parents and elders all the time, every day."  That’s what makes it so hard to be a Confucian: you have to follow Ritual in everything that you do. 

     Whichever Confucian tack we wish to take, I would just urge that we don’t overdo the father veneration thing.  Nothing has undermined the project of Confucianism – and I understand that to be the realization of universal Humanity – than its appropriation by men to consolidate their social power over women (and we might add, children).  In my efforts to bring Confucianism into modern conversations, I very often have to detach the ideas of Humanity and Duty and Ritual from their historical associations with patriarchy.  So, maybe one day for Father’s Day is just enough.  We can say thank you to dads without reproducing gender inequality.

     And Taoists?  What would they say about Father’s Day?  Not much, I think.  Taoism often stresses the elevation of the feminine over the masculine – in the contemporary language of therapy (which I abhor), it is telling men to get in touch with their inner woman.  Why reverse course on an arbitrary day in June to celebrate manliness?  It doesn’t quite fit the usual Taoist move of reversal: to hold tight to something, you have to let it go; to advance, you must retreat; etc.  More in keeping with this sensibility, Father’s Day should thus be a celebration of mothers, and Mother’s Day fathers. 

      So, do the Taoist thing and go out and wish your mom a happy Father’s Day!