Daily Dose of English 77
Father's Day
Daily Dose of English 77
Intermediate
Hey everyone, my name is Ben and you're listening to a Daily Dose of English. This is a short, simple podcast that you can listen to every day to improve your English. You can find the transcripts for all episodes and more on benslanguagelab.com. I'm glad you could make it today. Today, we're going to be talking about Father's Day. because today is Father's Day. Well, when this episode is going live at least. So if, well, also in the U.S. specifically. Because something that's kind of interesting, I guess, about Mother's Day and Father's Day is that it is celebrated very widely. It's observed in well over a hundred different countries all over the world. Over a hundred countries have a Father's Day. But it's not always on the same day. Sometimes it's some some parts of the world have it on a specific date. So for example on the 19th or the 29th of different months it can also be And some like the US have it on specific Like times of year, I guess if that makes makes sense Because we always celebrate it on a Sunday and I don't, actually, it must be the seven, like the second, no, the third Sunday, it must be. I actually don't know what Sunday it is or how it's chosen. That's interesting. I just know that it's today. But yeah, the second Sunday is May, is Mother's Day. I don't know what Father's Day is though. Whatever. Anyways, so let's talk a little bit about Father's Day. We talked about Mother's Day a few weeks ago. Yeah, it's because it was last month. Geez, I'm all confused. We talked about Mother's Day and it's relatively simple. However, it's a little different. Mother's Day is often where you have some sort of get together, maybe your family comes over and you have lunch or something like that. But with Father's Day, it's a little bit different. People will typically do something. They might go somewhere or do something a little bit different rather than like having a party or something like that. And so things are slightly different. So you might go with your father to an event maybe to get a drink, or to hang out, or to do something that he likes. There are different things that you can do, depending on what your relationship was with your father. And it's not as common to get a gift of some kind. Mother's Day gifts are fairly common. Father's Day gifts, I say, are less common, just in general, but they still happen. a thing that can happen. And you also can have events and parties, get-togethers, whatever it is. It's just so different from family. It's a little bit difficult to talk about specific things that happen on these days, right? Because if you talk about, I don't know, the 4th of July, there's something that kind of everybody that celebrates the 4th of July does. It's relatively similar. different ways that it gets done, but it's like the same ideas. But Father's Day is so open-ended because you can kind of do anything. Maybe you just call your father and you don't actually see him or you go to dinner or you build something together or I don't know. There's so many just different options. never really did Father's Day with my family or Mother's Day on it. I think I mentioned this a little bit, like we did some things for Mother's Day, but it would typically be like going to get coffee or having a treat or something like that. But Father's Day, I think we barely even recognized it was more like, hey dad, love you. And that was kind of it, which maybe is a little bit too bad because it is nice to see your father and honor him and I don't know, just have a day for that because there's, especially in the US, it's mothers typically are seen as the I guess like nicer figure. And so a lot of fathers don't understand, don't know how to connect with their children in a way that it's more, maybe more natural for a mother there. And that's mostly a cultural thing, right? That's not just a thing that happens, but it's cultural. And a lot of dads struggle to connect with their kids in a way that is, I don't want to say nice, but open, emotional, and like, hey, I love you. I'm really happy that you're my father, and I'm glad that I have this day to thank you for that specifically, and I got you a little gift, or I made you something. That just isn't as common of a relationship in the U.S., especially really just among all men and boys, which is something that is changing. It's a lot different now than it was like 30 years ago, right? 30 years ago, it probably would have been the classic pat on the back and good job, son, or good job, daughter, and that was it. Like that's the entire conversation. In fact, there's a lot of people that are older, so maybe in their 40s or 50s, talk about that sort of thing. They never had a relationship with their father in an open way. a bit closed off and don't share emotions and that sort of thing. And that culture is generally carried through to other generations. It's still common in the US for fathers and men to not talk to anybody about any of their problems. keep things inside, or a phrase that we like to use for that is bottle things up. If you bottle up your emotions, you're keeping your emotions inside and you're not necessarily sharing with anybody or opening with anyone. And in some ways, this even goes to love and saying I love you and that sort of thing. Actually, I'll give an example from one of my favorite TV shows of all time is Psych, P-S-Y-C-H. Psych is a very good TV show and the main character, His dad is also in the show. So the main character and his dad have a relationship throughout the show that shows this, right? He raised his son, right? So they lived together. The mother was not there. but they really struggle to connect in any way that's emotional or genuine in that sort of way. The dad was very much, or is, is or was, he's not a real person. He's a character in a TV show, but he's very focused on man's things, beer, football, being a police officer, fishing, those sorts of things, and didn't really connect and say to his son, I love you, I want to support you, whatever. It was very much like, do this, do this, you're wrong, you're doing this wrong, be better, that sort of thing. Very high standards for the son. And so you can see that in their relationship where they struggle to connect and talk about maybe problems or things like that. And so I think that's actually a pretty good example of the maybe dysfunctional relationships with fathers or that fathers used to have with their children. And some still do depending on where you are in the country or the family as well. And then the other kind of TV show I want to mention is a kid's show that's been really, really popular in the past couple years, and it's called Bluey. Bluey is an Australian TV show that is the second most viewed TV show in, I think, the world last year. which is crazy because it's a short kid's show. The most viewed show was Suits, by the way, if you want some more English immersion. But Bluey is said to, like a lot of fathers watch it with their kids because their kids love it, right? But the fathers also end up enjoying it because it's not a typical kid's show, which is just horrible to watch as an adult. It's just terribly boring and stupid. It's still kind of goofy and it's animated in their dogs in the show, but a lot of fathers connect with the father in the TV show, the dad dog, because he does mess things up and make mistakes, but then he often fixes them and learns how to be a better father. And there's even groups of fathers all over the world who are saying like, yeah, I learned some parenting things from watching Bluey with my kid. I learned how to be more genuine and talk to them in ways that are easier for kids to understand and easier for me to understand. And so I thought those would be sort of interesting examples of different relationships people might have with their fathers to share in this episode. However, that is all that I have for now. I hope that you enjoy this episode and maybe learn something here. And make sure that you call your dad or your father, even though, even if it's not Father's Day in your country, I'm sure he'll appreciate hearing from you and tell him that I say hi. But that's everything that I have from this episode. And I'll see you again tomorrow for another one. See you then. Bye.
For email updates, subscribe to my blog via email or RSS feed.