{"id":382,"date":"2009-06-18T23:40:13","date_gmt":"2009-06-19T04:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arielservadio.com\/blog\/?p=382"},"modified":"2009-06-18T23:49:35","modified_gmt":"2009-06-19T04:49:35","slug":"happy-fathers-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arielservadio.com\/blog\/2009\/06\/happy-fathers-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Father’s Day!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo
Photo Courtesy of Arrested Development being hilarious<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In honor of Father’s Day this Sunday I thought I’d re-post a piece I wrote<\/a> that my old friends Em & Lo<\/a> published last year when they were still blogging at Daily Bedpost. To both of my dads – Dad and Tom, and to all of the other feminist fathers out there – Happy Father’s Day!<\/p>\n

When I was little, my father read me a book from his\u00c2\u00a0childhood, Friday the Arapaho Indian<\/em> by A.M.\u00c2\u00a0Anderson. I heard the “true story” of a young Native\u00c2\u00a0American girl named Friday and her historical\u00c2\u00a0adventures. But if you’ve ever read Anderson’s book,\u00c2\u00a0you’ll know what I discovered when I was much older\u00c2\u00a0and my dad confessed the truth: Friday the Indian was a\u00c2\u00a0boy…<\/p>\n

As a sleepy child, I heard the story of a powerful and\u00c2\u00a0adventurous young woman doing extraordinary things -\u00c2\u00a0and I believed it. As my father painstakingly changed\u00c2\u00a0pronouns and altered sex-related details while reading\u00c2\u00a0to me every night before bed, he planted the seed of\u00c2\u00a0limitless possibilities in my brain. It wasn’t until I was\u00c2\u00a0nine years old that that idea was challenged: It was the\u00c2\u00a0end of third grade and the elementary school music\u00c2\u00a0teacher was preparing our class for joining the school\u00c2\u00a0band the next year. When we were asked what\u00c2\u00a0instruments we would like to play, I raised my hand and\u00c2\u00a0said I wanted to play the bass guitar. “No,” the music\u00c2\u00a0teacher replied, “I need big, strong boys to play the\u00c2\u00a0guitar next year.” So I got stuck playing the alto\u00c2\u00a0saxophone. At least it wasn’t the flute, I guess.<\/p>\n

This idea of boys being big and strong and able to do\u00c2\u00a0things that girls couldn’t was new to me. Both my\u00c2\u00a0parents took a proactive role in teaching me I was\u00c2\u00a0capable of anything and everything, but my dad went\u00c2\u00a0above and beyond what was usually expected of a\u00c2\u00a0father-daughter relationship. He taught me skills that\u00c2\u00a0many would reserve for only a son: I know how to fire a\u00c2\u00a0gun, drive a dirt bike, skin an animal, clean a fish,\u00c2\u00a0rappel down a tree, fight with martial arts and defensive\u00c2\u00a0tactics – the list goes on. He bought me just as many\u00c2\u00a0chemistry sets and microscopes and sports supplies as\u00c2\u00a0he did Easy-Bake Ovens. He wasn’t afraid to talk to me\u00c2\u00a0about sex or the processes of the female reproductive\u00c2\u00a0system, either.<\/p>\n

I distinctly remember being about four when I watched\u00c2\u00a0my first informative video about the birds and the bees\u00c2\u00a0– a cartoon featuring a man and woman with squiggly-drawn genitalia. My mother says that was all my father’s\u00c2\u00a0idea. And when I got my first period at 11 years old, my\u00c2\u00a0mother was in the hospital busy having my little\u00c2\u00a0brother, so I had to go home and tell my father what\u00c2\u00a0had happened to me in school that day. For many of my\u00c2\u00a0peers it would no doubt have been a traumatic event, yet\u00c2\u00a0for me it was completely comfortable and natural to talk\u00c2\u00a0about it with my dad. Because he never made sex ed\u00c2\u00a0weird, or made me feel ashamed about going through\u00c2\u00a0puberty, I think I’ve always had a healthy outlook on\u00c2\u00a0sex – one that’s made me curious and confident and\u00c2\u00a0responsible (and, needless to say, brave enough to\u00c2\u00a0intern at a sex blog).<\/p>\n

I grew up thinking that the world was my oyster, thanks\u00c2\u00a0in particular to my father. I don’t think he would\u00c2\u00a0actually ever describe himself as a feminist – I’ve rarely\u00c2\u00a0heard him use the word. But I know that he is, because I\u00c2\u00a0am.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And while you’re at it, don’t forget to thank your dad for the 10 things he inadvertently taught you about sex<\/a> on June 21st!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In honor of Father’s Day this Sunday I thought I’d re-post a piece I wrote that my old friends Em & Lo published last year when they were still blogging at Daily Bedpost. To both of my dads – Dad and Tom, and to all of the other feminist fathers out there – Happy Father’s … Continue reading “Happy Father’s Day!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminism","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arielservadio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arielservadio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arielservadio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arielservadio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arielservadio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/arielservadio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":395,"href":"https:\/\/arielservadio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382\/revisions\/395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arielservadio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arielservadio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arielservadio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}