Well, the ritual of celebrating moms and dads is over with for 2018 and though it is always fraught with at least a twinge of capitalist guilt, it’s nice to think of and/or have a playdate with mom and dad. As a social scientist, I enjoy observing and judging the actions and propaganda and social expectations that surround Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and it’s clear that while people may lump them together as little made-up holiday twinsies, they couldn’t be more different.

If they were sports, Mother’s Day would be the Olympics and Father’s Day would be a high school swim meet. If they were booze, Father’s Day would be Lucky Lager and Mother’s Day would be an expensive bottle of champagne. If they were pets, Mother’s Day would be a beautiful Labrador puppy and Father’s Day would be a carnival goldfish. If they were vacations, Mother’s Day would be the south of France and Father’s Day would be Bolsa Chica State Beach. If they were workplace accommodations, Father’s Day is the shared cubicle in a temporary trailer and Mother’s Day is the fuckin’ corner office in the penthouse.

Get the idea (because I could go on)? Mother’s Day is more important than Father’s Day. It just is. People make a bigger deal out of it, plan for it, make reservations and synchronize watches. No family wings it on Mother’s Day, the stakes are too high, the punishment too severe.

No, the Mother’s Day preparations usually start right around Valentine’s Day. Children and grandchildren are bathed and dressed in special outfits, it’s like Easter without the Peeps. The fattened calf is slaughtered and gifts are piled at the altar and Mother’s Day rules mandate that it be seventy-eight degrees and sunny.

Mother’s Day is a $600 sundress, new shoes and a purse, Father’s Day is shorts and a t-shirt.

The most obvious and fun way to get a gauge of just how different the days are is to simply go to the grocery store on Mother’s Day. Take with you a folding chair and set it up in the produce section starting around 7:30 AM. Husbands and sons, some with small children in their pajamas, will start to arrive in large numbers. They will be frenzied, scared … there’s no day on the Gregorian calendar when men are more afraid of their wives than on Mother’s Day – I’ve seen their faces, looked into their eyes, it’s not a sight for the squeamish.

These Mother’s Day shoppers are desperate for motherly trinkets, usually flowers. They grab the first ones they see, fake flowers, wilted flowers, paper plates with flowers on them. They buy plants and big bundles of those balloons that destroy the atmosphere and they literally fight over the last pink Mother’s Day card (it says, “This year like every year I thought of you at the absolute last second, but I still think you’re a great mom.”)

Between the hours of 7:30 AM and noon on every Mother’s Day, terrified men mostly, will push and shove and cut in line like flood victims reaching for the last Red Cross food parcel. They will buy every flower and plant and one year I saw a young dad digging up a piece of sod from the grassy area near where they keep the carts. They buy fruit arrangements and giant cookies stenciled with “mom” and cheesy little plaques with words that are neither clever nor original.

Mother’s Day is very important. Failure is not an option.

On Father’s Day that same store will be near empty and when the checker greets every customer with a bright “Happy Father’s Day” almost everyone is surprised … Oh, yeah! They will then quickly survey the real estate around the checkstand and probably grab a pack of gum and a Slim Jim … This should do it.

In the annual contest between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, Father’s Day gets its ass kicked. It’s like the Harlem Globetrotters against the Washington Generals or the Patriots playing the Bills – a complete mismatch.

They are two very different versions of the very same thing … men and women, night and day … not better or worse just different.

If they were music, Mother’s Day would be the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Father’s Day would be a barefoot hillbilly blowin’ into a jug … but it’s all family music just the same.

Photo credit: Mark Fischer on VisualHunt/ CC BY-SA