Tomorrow is Frog Day

When your father comes, you’re going to find out, I’ll tell your father, let’s see what your father says, what joy your father will have… The father was an almost divine figure in the family. His arrival from work at noon or at night was the highlight of the day. The mother suffered from pranks and childish fights, she received the first shock of bad grades and bad news and she was turned to for permits, licenses and money, but she did not decide nor was she responsible for the scolding, punishment or tip. We had to wait for the providential being to come, the main beam of the family, the father.

And the father arrived and his appearance was hailed every day as the second coming of the messiah. The key was heard in the lock and the house was revolutionized. It was time for the big daily decisions, he was the one who decided if they gave you money to go on the excursion, if they punished you without going out that weekend, if the television ended until you passed. The mother negotiated or recommended secretly, in secret, but the final decision was up to the supreme, the leader, the great helmsman: the father.

Being a father came as standard, you were a father from the cradle, you were a father, a deity, a judge and a field marshal by divine anointing, you were a father because you were a man and, logically, the most important celebration of the year, the festival of the holidays, the day that could not miss a gift, a sumptuous meal and happiness in abundance was Father’s Day, that is, today, March 19, a date that no one ever forgot and was prepared with several days of advance.

You could miss a birthday, Mother’s Day hadn’t been invented yet and all these modern days dedicated to women, pride, museums or croquettes didn’t exist and would have caused surprise for nothing. The day of days was that of the father. Point. And if, in addition to being a father, your name was José, then artificial rockets were already being fired, gifts rained down and they took you to have a Mirinda for three and a portion of battered squid of which, being a large family, you got half a squid .

This March, the day of digital abstinence (5), the world day of the potato omelette (9), the international day of the DJ (9), the day of the bagpipe (10), the tweeters ( 12), the Pi number (14), the contact (15)… After the father, come the world day without meat (20), the flour day (20), the sparrow day (20), the elevator day (23), the one to read Tolkien (25), the one with the waffle (25)… And tomorrow, Sunday is, heck, heck… World Frog Day. My goodness, the day of the frog! Who would have imagined 30 years ago that there would come a day when parents and frogs would be on the same level? And luckily there is still a bit of respect left and they have had the detail of celebrating the batrachian on the 20th because if they put it on the 19th, surely the frogs and toads would have more of a party (yes, the day of the frog is also the day of the toad) than to parents.

Because parents today are not born, they are made. Paternity and paternal authority for those who work for it, they don’t give it to you with your male condition. In the first place, because the concept of family as the union of man and woman, father with mother, is outdated and does not hold up, and secondly, because the fashion is not there and that of venerating the father because it is over. Some call March 19 expendable parent’s day, that is, they ignore us and, well, I’m not complaining, but for years, calling me José and being a father, on March 19 they neither give me anything nor put me to eat salad If I were a frog…