Joe Hildebrand in Stellar: ‘Here’s what I learnt when I did a bit of research into Father’s Day’

TURN’S out Father’s Day is not another day invented for commercial reasons but has roots dating back to the Middle Ages.

I HAVE always been a tad wary about Father’s Day, just as I am about Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day and any other occasion that looks suspiciously like it was invented by Westfield.

Basically my position is that unless Jesus was born or died, then it’s not a real holiday.

This is not because I am particularly religious, but because I am a bit of a tight-arse.

Yes, I know that on Father’s Day it’s supposed to be me getting all the presents, but the truth is there’s no such thing as a free lunch, let alone a free breakfast in bed.

Sure, I might be lucky enough to get a three-pack of sports socks in September, but the following May I then have to buy my wife a Thermomix.

And that’s just not good business.

So I thought I would do a bit of research into what Father’s Day actually was and how it all began. And by “research”, I of course mean looking it up on Wikipedia.

As it turns out, Father’s Day is an extremely old and venerated tradition dating back to the Middle Ages, when Europe was strongly Christian, the West wasn’t afraid to take on Islam and the average life expectancy was about 35. In other words, what Fraser Anning refers to as the good old days.

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Back then it was celebrated in March, as the feast day of St Joseph, who was widely venerated in Catholic Europe as the world’s greatest stepdad.

Indeed, for anyone who has watched the highly informative parenting documentary Daddy’s Home, it is worth noting that Joseph would have been the Will Ferrell character and God would have been Mark Wahlberg.

That’s when it occurred to me: The whole traditional family unit of Judeo-Christian Western civilisation is in fact based on a complete furphy.

If the Holy Family were around today, they wouldn’t be wearing matching sweaters on a Hallmark card, they’d be on the Maury show with the wiry Jewish host holding a DNA test declaring: “You are not the father!”

I have to say that as a very Jewish-looking Catholic who works in morning television, I am extremely comfortable with that.

The truth is that no family is perfect, even the one that’s supposed to be the most perfect of all. And gosh, isn’t it a bit of a relief?

In an age when countless idiotic Instagram influencers and moronic mummy bloggers tell us how right on they are and all the things we’re doing wrong, I find it a little bit refreshing that the society we live in basically comes from a Middle-Eastern working-class carpenter saying to his wife: “Sorry, honey, did you say you were pregnant?”

Because that’s the nice thing about Joseph. He must have been confused — he must have got suss, but he stuck around. He raised the boy as his own, all the while knowing that any day Mark Wahlberg would probably reappear out of nowhere with some crackpot idea of what he should do with his life. (And boy, didn’t that turn out well …)

The Christians of medieval times called Joseph nutritor Domini — the “nourisher of the Lord”.

So this Father’s Day, let’s remember who the real dads are.

The ones who pack the lunches and patch up the sores.

The ones who read books and wrestle monsters.

The ones who are there.

— This article originally appeared in Stellar and is reproduced here with permission.

— Stellar is available in today’s News Corp’s Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Herald Sun and Sunday Mail. For more information visit the website.

— Joe co-hosts Studio 10, 8.30am weekdays, on Network Ten. Continue the conversation with on Twitter @Joe_Hildebrand

Originally published as Joe Hildebrand in Stellar: ‘Here’s what I learnt when I did a bit of research into Father’s Day’