She Called It Mothers and Father's Day. And She Was Right.
A race car pen, some socks, a keyring that says "I love daddy this much" — and the best Father's Day I've had so far.
My dad always called Father's Day a Hallmark holiday.
He refused to celebrate it. Said it was invented to sell cards, and he didn't need a designated Sunday to know his daughter loved him. So I grew up never making much of it — no cards, no breakfast in bed, no fuss. And when he died, the day became even less significant to me. Just another Sunday.
My daughter had other plans.
She woke me up this morning with her face approximately two centimetres from mine, eyes wide, telling me to get up. She had been awake for a while, I think. Waiting.
She had gifts she’d bought at the Father’s Day stall at school.
A race car pen. Chocolates. A keyring that says "I love daddy this much." And socks — because she knows I recently threw most of mine out when I found holes in them, and she had been paying attention.
Then we went to see Harry Potter at the movies and to IKEA, because that is apparently the perfect Father's Day.
She called it Mothers and Father's Day. And referred to me all day as her “pretend daddy”, because that is what it is for us.
And honestly? Apart from the meltdown when she tried to get run over in the IKEA carpark, it was the perfect Father’s Day.
What the keyring actually means.
The keyring that says "I love daddy this much" didn’t upset me. She’s still learning to read, but she knew exactly what it said, and it was what she wanted to give me; to her, I am daddy as well.
Plus, she was so proud to give me something she chose herself. She picked it because she thought I would like it. Because she wanted to give me something that said how much she loves me. The words on it are, in her mind, completely beside the point — she is not giving me a daddy keyring. She is giving me a keyring that says she loves me this much and that, to her, I am her mummy and her daddy.
Which is exactly what it is.
How you react to a gift like that tells your child far more about your own relationship with your family than it teaches the school or the shop anything about inclusive gifting. Your daughter is watching. What she sees in your face when you open it — that is what she takes away from the moment.
I took away: my child loves me and wanted to show me. Full stop.
The dance dad socks.
My daughter has attended dance class since she was two and every year they have a father’s day class, where the dad’s can dance with their kids. I always ask her if she wants me to come and her response so far has always been a very excitable “yes”. Nowadays I don’t really think about the fact that I am the only mum in the class, I think about the fact that I get to dance with her twice each year, and I think about how we showed the dads up when we performed a lift at the end of the routine we were taught.
Her dance school gave me a pair of socks the first year that said Dance Dad on them. I wore them proudly. and I now wear them every year for the class.
I assume they had never had a solo mum by choice family before, so they’d never had to think about it. They do now. And since that year they’ve never given socks (this year we kindly got a security light keyring).
That’s how change happens. Not by being outraged. By showing up, wearing the socks, and being so visibly, joyfully part of it that next time they think a little more broadly about who might be in the room.
The child who said it was sad.
On the day of the Father’s Day stall, a child in my daughter’s class told her it was sad she doesn't have a dad.
My daughter told her it wasn't sad — she has a donor instead. The child kept talking over her. Kept insisting. Wouldn't hear it.
My daughter came to me frustrated. Not sad that she doesn't have a dad. Frustrated that this child would not listen. Because that is how my daughter experiences this — not as a loss, but as a fact about her family that some people are still catching up to.
Her frustration was about being talked over. About someone deciding the narrative for her before she’d finished speaking. That’s a completely reasonable frustration that has nothing to do with donor conception.
I know that child. It’s completely normal behaviour for her to talk over people and not listen. My daughter was not upset about her family. She was upset about being dismissed.
Knowing the difference matters.
On the things that don't cater to your family.
I want to say something gently here, because I think it matters.
If your child's school or daycare didn't cater well to diverse families on Father's Day this year, I understand you could be feeling very disappointed. It’s worth raising. It’s worth a conversation with the teacher or a quiet suggestion for next year.
But….
Did you actually talk to them before the day? Did you let them know about your family situation and what would help your child? Or did you wait and see what happened, feel hurt by the result, and post about it afterwards?
Because a school can’t cater for what it doesn’t know about. Teachers are not mind readers. They are managing thirty children, a curriculum, and a hundred small crises a day. If you want them to handle your child's experience thoughtfully, tell them. Give them the information. Give them the opportunity to get it right. Don’t assume that just because they know your child doesn’t have a dad that they’ll remember or consider it when they’re planning Father’s Day (if they’re even planning it themselves).
If you told them and they still got it wrong — that is a different conversation. That is worth having directly, and worth following up.
But if you set them up to fail by not being explicit about what you needed, and then reacted to the failure — you’ve taught your child that the world is a hostile place that doesn’t think of you, rather than a place that responds well when you advocate clearly for yourself.
The schools and daycares that get this right are almost always the ones where a parent took the time to start the conversation first. My daughter's daycare didn’t do Father's Day at all — they had Special People Day, which is wonderful and inclusive, and I am grateful for it, except it also meant they didn’t do any crafts at all. I was quite sad I never had a handmade card calling me the #1 Dad. But I also know that change like that usually starts with one parent saying something.
Be that parent. For your child, and for the family behind you who has not arrived yet.
What she said at the end of the day.
I asked my daughter what her favourite part of Father's Day was.
She said: giving you the presents. Because I love giving people presents and showing them how much I love them.
Not the movie. Not IKEA. Not the chocolates.
Giving me the keyring that says "I love daddy this much" and the socks and the race car pen — because she had been thinking about what I needed and what I would like, and she wanted me to know.
She’s six and she already understands that love is in the showing up, in the paying attention, in the choosing something because you thought of someone specifically.
She learned that somewhere. I like to think it was from watching me do the same for her, every day, in the family we built together.
Mother’s and Father's Day. She got it exactly right.
My Perfect Family celebrates all the ways families are made — a beautiful book for any child's shelf, and a gentle way to open the conversation at school or daycare.
Looking for a community of women who understand exactly what today felt like — the complicated bits and the perfect bits? The SMS Membership is open.
Alisha Burns is the founder of Solo Mum Society and a solo mum by choice. Her daughter was conceived via donor conception and born in 2020. Solo Mum Society is Australia's leading community for women choosing solo motherhood by choice. This blog is for general informational purposes only. Fertility circumstances vary significantly between individuals. Please seek personalised advice from a fertility specialist and financial advisor for your specific situation.