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Father’s Day

Ages 1-6

Ages 4-7

Ages 1-4

When is it?

• Third Sunday in June

Read

Read about all kinds of dads! Including validating stories for kids with multiple dads, and without dads.

• Dad by My Side: Involved, primary caretaker dads!
• The Better Tree Fort: Involved, collaborated dads!
• We Are Little Feminist Families: Trans gestational parent dads!
• My Maddy: Nonbinary and gender creative masculine-adjacent parents.
• Boats for Papa: Deceased dads with moms who support kids in maintaining memories and support them through grief.
• A Father Like That: Absent dads, and the co-parents who support kids in navigating abandonment and loss.
• Visiting Day: Incarcerated dads, who kids have to jump through hoops to visit.
• Knock Knock: For children whose fathers have been involuntarily separated from them – for instance from incarceration, death, or deportation.

Watch:

• Have you seen the movie Onward? It’s utterly lovely. Healthy masculinity and dismantling assumptions on the 4.5-member nuclear family for the win!
• Who is watching your kids?

Discuss:

• What responsibilities do dads have in the commercials, movies, shows, and books we consume, versus other genders?
• How does this differ from the roles our caregivers have at home?
• What genders of parents do we most often find doing unpaid community work in our schools and parks?
• When we get together with other families, which parents plan the event? Cook and prepare? Clean up afterward?
• Check the restroom at your favorite stores and restaurants. Which bathrooms have changing tables for caregivers to change diapers? How does its impact the ability of some parents to take primary responsibility for their kids?
• Kids with dads: How often do other adults praise your dad for doing basic dad things, like taking you out in public or caring for you? Why do they do that?

Take Action:

• Support National Bail Out with donations, volunteering, and/or signal-boosting to reunite incarcerated parents with their families, support bail reform, and create resources to support families navigating pretrial detention.

Dig deeper with these resources:

• Raising Tomorrow’s Fathers – Children’s Books With Feminist Dads
• Love is Love is Love – Validating Diverse Family Constellations in Kids Books
• Kids books celebrating healthy masculinity
• Boys who keep house: Raising Sons Who Value Care Work
• Kids books about family member incarceration