As we approach another Father’s Day, I find myself reflecting on a holiday that, while seemingly harmless to some, has become impossible for me to ignore. Father’s Day is not just outdated — it is actively harmful. It is racist, patriarchal, and deeply rooted in a vision of family that excludes and punishes the very communities progress demands we center.
For too long, we have allowed this holiday to uphold a narrow, Eurocentric ideal of the nuclear family: a present father, a stable household, and the expectation that men should take primary responsibility for raising their children. This model has never reflected the lived reality of Black and Brown families in America. By celebrating fatherhood so visibly, we are implicitly shaming those fathers who have been systemically prevented from fulfilling that role. That is not compassion. That is violence wrapped in greeting cards and power tools.
Single mothers — especially mothers of color — have carried entire communities on their backs for generations while facing the dual burdens of capitalism and institutional neglect. Why should we dedicate a federal day to honoring the absence of fathers when these women have been doing the work of two parents under impossible conditions? Father’s Day doesn’t just ignore their strength; it erases it.
This holiday also reeks of the same kind of selective standards we see in voter I.D. laws and other so-called “neutral” policies. On paper it sounds reasonable: celebrate dads. But we all know who it really burdens and who it leaves behind. Expecting fathers to show up year after year is the same logic that says everyone should just “get an I.D.” It ignores the systemic barriers. It places responsibility on individuals instead of on the structures that failed them.
That’s why I am calling for the full abolition of Father’s Day as a nationally recognized holiday. In its place, we should establish Community Accountability Sunday — a day that honors all family structures equally, without elevating one above the others. No more centering biological fathers. No more reinforcing colonial expectations of what a family “should” look like. Instead, we invest in real solutions: expanded childcare, universal basic income, and mandatory education on decolonizing parenting norms.
Some will call this extreme. They will say I’m attacking fathers. But silence in the face of systemic oppression is complicity. True equity means dismantling every tradition that props up inequality — even the ones with backyard barbecues and “World’s Okayest Dad” mugs.
The future we deserve is one where no child feels less-than because their family doesn’t match a 1950s sitcom. It’s time we had the courage to move beyond Father’s Day.
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