Why can't I just get a clay ashtray and a hug?

There is way too much overhead in every situation in my life these days. Father's Day is a prime example.

I assume that most fathers with young children are eagerly awaiting this Sunday's consumerist celebration of dad-hood, but I'm having difficulty looking forward to it at all.

I'm irritated that Father's Day has to be complex in the first place. All I really want is to be able to get a hug or two and maybe a clay ashtray from my son.

But how am I supposed to feel comfortable on Father's Day? My son has already spilled the beans that he has made me a tie. A manly concept. Hopefully the result is cute enough to be worn with pride, and a skirt.

My son coming home with a tie is one of countless gender-binary-reinforcing messages that I'll be bombarded with this weekend. I've already spent a week being inundated by ads for RV-sized gas grills and navy blue shirts cut for a 40" waist. Somehow, Father's Day is a celebration of manhood, not parentage. Dads are assumed to want--on this, our special day--to indulge in ball-scratching and the grilling of huge steaks without fear of ridicule. For one day a year, the normally embarrassing middle aged man is celebrated for being himself.

I completely support the idea. I just don't want to be tarred with that brush. I'm not that person. I am a very different kind of father.

Which, in some senses, means I'm a failure in the traditional father role. I can't show my son how to throw a ball because I've never been able to do it properly myself. I will not be initiating him in the ways of manhood because I am stripping away my manhood as fast as I can, and I'll be long finished by the time he's a man. Whatever special gifts a father offers to his son by virtue of his gender, I can't offer.

Rationally speaking, I know that I offer more than enough, and much more than many fathers, but I do feel guilty about stopping being that boy's father. I'll always be his parent, but I won't identify as a dad. The dad archetype is explicitly male.

I guess there are lots of queer parents out there in similar situations. Eventually, I'm sure we'll come up with some alternative to Father's Day that works, but this year, I have to pretend I'm happy as a dad. That feels like more lying to my son about who I am, and I hate doing that.

On top of my own relationship with my identity as a father, I have my relationship with my own father to fret over. My dad is struggling to accept my transness. He loves me unconditionally, but he's abrupt and emotionally handicapped at his best moments. My coming out launched him into a whole new galaxy of awkwardness. When the whole family's together I am acutely conscious of the complexity that my changing has injected into all of our lives.

If I want to get together with my whole family, I have to climb partway back into the fetid coffin of my manhood. I have let my Dad avoid seeing me "as a woman" thus far. He has seen me wearing androgynous clothes intended for women, and makeup, but never with the breast forms or a skirt. That's the same way I present around my son (bad for me, best for him), but my Dad hasn't even seen the most current, feminine, version of that look. I doubt he'll take it smoothly, so that means I'll have to weather his awkwardness, and that's guaranteed to get my guilt going.

Who wouldn't be looking forward to Father's Day?