It is a truth low-key acknowledged that Autostraddle, the website, has never really excelled in the realm of Father-related content. Memorably, in 2014, a writer emailed us to ask if we had any content planned for Father’s Day and our Managing Editor Rachel responded — “I don’t think any of us thought about this because our dads are either dead or tea partiers, but if you wanted to write something I think that could be neat!”
They didn’t write anything. But I did! My Dad was one of the dead ones, and I wrote about that, and wow what a wonderful way to celebrate Father’s Day!! Listen, we’ve never followed the rules around here and Father’s Day was no exception.
Rachel was exaggerating, of course — for example, Yvonne’s Dad is neither dead or a Tea Partier — but it’s true that a lot of us here have relationships with our fathers that are estranged at best and non-existent at worst (usually because of Death). It’s true that Laneia and I, whose hands have perhaps been the heaviest with respect to the website’s tone over the past ten years, have dead Dads who we miss too much to bring ourselves to engage with too much Living Dads Content.
Still though — a lot of the writers here have Good Living Dads. I know this because in 2016 we did an A+ roundtable about our Dads in which we shared vintage photos of our cool youthful fathers, and listen a lot of us had or have very cool Dads! A lot of you have really cool Dads too!
However, when I search the Autostraddle archives for stories about Dads and Fathers, I get results about using the term “Daddy” during sex. I get three posts (!!) about Dad Hats, and two about the Dream Daddy video game and I get “Why Mommi is the New Daddy.” Honestly, I mostly get posts about DADT (Don’t Ask Don’t Tell). At a glance, it seems we’ve written more about the various Dads of Supergirl than we have about any of our actual Dads.
But that’s not all, of course, and what I’ve included here are a selection of the stories I did find that are focused on Dads and not on hats or video games. Some of these stories are funny or whimsical or uplifting, and some are sad, and most are very complicated in their way. Obviously we’re going to have more of the latter because stories need conflict and “my Dad is great!” isn’t a really solid pitch, but well, life is complicated.
Have an excellent Father’s Day, friends, whatever that means to you!
A Love Letter to Butch People (That Is Accidentally About My Dad)
A Road Trip With Your Father In Honor of His 74th Birthday, In Playlist Form
Impossible Machinery: On (Not) Coming Out to My Dad as Bisexual
Salsa y La Naturaleza: How a Willie Colón Song Taught Me About Queerness and Love
Team Pick: “Dad Bingo,” A Bingo Game Invented By Rachel For Her Dad’s Upcoming Visit
“This Is A Book For The Parents Of Gay Kids”: A Coming Out Conversation with Bruce and Phyllis
Autostraddle Book Club #4: Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
i literally just came to the website to look for my fav daddy issue essays! you make my life easy breezy
I love to anticipate needs and fulfill them!!!!!
Oh my. *fans herself*
As a father I tried to be the best damn Dad a woman could be!
Our two children grew up to be successful adults whom are considerate and concerned for others and respect women as equals.
Still my two siblings and I are very grateful for our Dad whom taught is self-reliance, respect for self and other and commitment to responsibilities. So there’s that going for my children too, I cannot take all the credit.
Mine is alive and goes way beyond tea party, but my father-in-law is a pretty cool guy and I’m grateful to have him.
An excellent array of Dad Feels! Also, I’m a fan of Maddie’s father Bruce and I really enjoyed reading their interview again.
Autostraddle’s mix of “daddy articles” reflects how conflicted I am about my own father, with regards to my queerness.
My father is not dead (although there have been many close calls), he is not absent, he votes centre-right, and since the day I was born I have been the apple of his eye. But in addition to being kind and caring, he’s also racist, sexist and homophobic. And he has inherited a pattern of Master suppression techniques from his abusive upbringing. I speak to him for an hour or two every week, but he knows neither my religion nor my sexual orientation.
I want to think that my father loves me dearly, but I also struggle to reconcile that with the idea that he doesn’t respect or care for people like me, and the fact that he may never truly know me for that very reason.
Rough…
LOVE FATHER’S DAY
I had forgotten how great that Rachel piece was…