This Sunday, families will presumably gather to honor the fathers and father figures in their lives; they’ll celebrate fatherhood and paternal bonds and the influence of fathers in society. Maybe they’ll be a special dinner, maybe they’ll be gifts of socks, ties, “the best dad ever” aprons, and hand drawn pictures by a 5 year old budding artist. Or perhaps the gatherings will be overshadowed by all of the no good, horrible, terrible, very bad things that have been taking place since the year started, since the new “sheriff” came to town. 

Case in point, the thousands of federal employees including fathers and father figures who have been fired or laid off from the jobs and careers they cherished, throwing their economic stability and the economic safety of their families in peril. The Trump Administration invited almost all federal workers, 2 million plus, to resign in exchange for continued pay and benefits through September. If this isn’t the definition of no, good, horrible, terrible, very bad things, I don’t know what is. To date, the Labor Department has reported over 59,000 federal jobs are now gone under this current administration but the exact figures are hard to estimate because they do not include employees on paid leave or receiving severance. [1] While many federal workers have taken the invitation to resign, others exist in a state of uncertainty. And with Father’s Day right around the corner,  how does one celebrate when you’re dealing with the sudden loss of a paycheck and struggling to find a way to put food on the table or the sudden loss of benefits like health insurance, dental insurance and paid family and medical leave? As a reminder, the United States remains one of the few countries in the world without a guaranteed national paid family and medical leave program. Sure, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) provides unpaid leave for new parents, fathers included, but there’s no federal mandate, states are left to enact their own paid leave programs. Fathers and families are in freefall.

Men want to be and are involved caregivers and parents; a recent survey indicates that men are extremely or very concerned about the health of their family and their family’s financial situation. [2] The fact is that most men still don’t have access to paid leave programs that would allow them to take time off from work after the birth or adoption of a child or even to care for a loved one with a serious health condition. If (and that’s a big if) they are lucky enough to win the boss lottery and have an employer that provides some form of paid leave, it's typically not completely gender-neutral or inclusive of different familial structures. Only 25 percent of all workers have access to paid family leave through their employers. Fun facts: since 1965, fathers in the US have almost tripled the time they spend caring for children and working fathers are just as likely as working mothers to say they find it hard to manage family and work responsibilities. [3] Additionally, in 2023, nearly 1.6 million single parent households were headed by men. [4]  

What do Dads really want for Father’s Day? I’d wager it isn’t a new tool set or a mini keychain measuring tape. I think they deserve what we all deserve; the ability to take time off from work to care for a newborn, a newly-adopted child or newly placed foster child, to address their own serious health condition or care for a family member with a serious health condition while earning a portion of their pay. Fathers need paid family and medical leave. That’s it. 

For this Father’s Day and frankly everyday, we should continue fighting for families, fighting for the investments in our care economy; investments in child care and early education, eldercare and paid family and medical leave. We don’t need “One Big Beautiful Bill” that will negatively impact millions of people across the country, make massive cuts to Medicaid and Snap, make it harder for families to afford the escalating cost of groceries and health care. We don’t need children's food assistance cut or terminated, we don’t need a reduction in the quality of nursing homes or threats to funding for home- and community-based care. And we certainly don’t need a bill that would potentially be the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in the history of the US. 

So while our systems and institutions seem to be disintegrating rather rapidly, this Father’s Day,  we can also find joy in being in community fighting for what’s right, holding our loved ones close, celebrating our friends, fathers and father figures and secure in the knowledge that dark days don’t last forever.