What Dad REALLY wants on Father's Day - *Hint - It's not a Frozen Steak from Iceland*

On Sunday it’s Father’s Day in the UK. It’s the time of the year when Daddy Bloggers become a target by PR companies to hawk their wares. In the past month or so I’ve been flooded with offers of product to ‘include in a Father’s Day Gift Guide Post’. From Whiskey to Ergonomic Keyboards, Bowties to Seaweed Pasta – it’s been an endless stream of begging to be showcased on the blog. It all falls on deaf ears over here, because, well..

I fucking hate gift guides

To me a gift guide is essentially a way of hoovering up freebies of any sort, and writing, often in a rather tenuous fashion why it’s ‘great as a gift’. Sure – you get a lot of freebies, and can stuff them into a post with minimal effort as ‘payment’. Heck, even the Mummy Bloggers jump on board Father’s Day bandwagon, spewing out post after post of ‘what they are getting hubby’.

It spoils what’s meant to be a day where kids appreciate their parents, and vice-versa. Receiving payment from a frozen food brand to push their gopping looking steak and tenuously tie it to Father’s Day is just grubby. It’s a day about you, and your kids – that’s it. It’s not for commercial gain.

Do you know what Dad really wants on Father’s Day?

Well, for me – I just want to have my kids with me, a card (no-doubt handmade from school) from my son, and one my daughter has picked out with her pocket money. Perhaps a cup of tea, lovingly made by them, and that’s it. That is all I want and need, just a little token, a nod to the fact I’m their Dad. We’ll probably go out for a lunch, but even that is an extravagance. Just hanging out with my perfect two is enough.

I don’t get to see my kids as much as I’d like, I don’t wake up with them everyday. It’s hard – I miss them, I really do. However a pair of socks or an Iceland Steak won’t make my day. Just having some time with them is all I need. When kids are growing up, two weeks between seeing them is an awfully long time. You see just how quickly things are changing. J is rocketing in size, G is becoming a young woman – it’s fucking scary.

I know that I’ve still got a good few years of J coming to see me, and wanting to hang out with me and Miss A. G however, is a teenager, and time with me isn’t so much of a priority. She’s got mates, she’s got a YouTube Channel, she’s growing a life of her own and I completely understand it. When I was her age, I just wanted to hang around in town with my friends, being with my parents was just ‘sad’. I’m so proud of how she’s growing, both of them in fact – they are brilliant human beings.

Don’t get me wrong, I love getting presents – I really do. My carefully curated Wish List has everything I want. However, save that stuff for a Birthday, or Christmas, even then – I never EVER want anything flash or pricey from my kids.