Father’s Day is on the 21st of June, and although gifting is the obvious thing to do, what does this day actually mean to us? As daughters and sons, but also as the wives of the fathers of our children?

The role of fathers has changed massively in the last generation or so for some, but for others, tradition still reigns supreme, with moms at home with the kids and fathers going out and earning a living to support their families. Whatever your personal circumstances, how do you feel about your father?

It’s a truly complicated question. I grew up in the age where fathers were the breadwinners, and that was their role. As far as childrearing was concerned, that was more my mother’s domain. My mom often tells us stories of when we were babies or toddlers, and how my father (in my case) would walk up and down our long passage at night with me in the pram, because I was such a terrible sleeper and my mom was horribly sleep-deprived because of it. But as an adult, or even a teenager, most of my parenting came from my mother, and so, as an adult, forging a relationship with my father was unchartered territory.

For a long time, I resented how distant my father always seemed, how different my relationship with him was to the one I shared with my mother. It felt like he was truly uninterested in me as a person, or who I was as an adult.

What turned all of this around for me was when I met and married my husband. I watched him with my father, and they had such an easy, comfortable relationship that I figured my dad was, after all, capable of such a relationship, and that perhaps I’d been approaching it from the wrong angle. My husband simply accepted who my father was. No conditions, no criticism, just quiet and full acceptance. When I started emulating this exact approach, I found that not only did my father open up in a way he hadn’t before, but I did too, and our relationship started to take on the same well-worn and beloved feel that he had with my husband.

Now, many years later, my husband and I have a son. My husband is a wonderful father, despite not having the best example. Watching them together, and how easily they relate, chat and play, I’ve come to learn a valuable life lesson – parenting is something you teach yourself. Yes, it’s great and helpful to have had good parents to learn from, but it’s not a necessity to becoming a good parent yourself. My husband self-taught, and because our parenting styles are so different, and we have different priorities when it comes to our son, we’ve learned so much from each other as well. I’ve always thought that in many ways, it’s more difficult for men to parent. At least it is for the generations of boys who were raised to be men who never spoke about, much less acknowledged, any emotion which wasn’t considered ‘manly’. Parenting is all about tapping into your own emotions, thoughts and reactions, and even as someone who has always done that naturally, even I’ve found it difficult to do in the parenting sphere.

There are so many different approaches on to how to run a household and how to bring up a child. I think many of us are strongly influenced by how we were raised, and that comes out in our own parenting. But I also think, most importantly, that one size does not fit all, and that preconceived ideas about what parenting should like, who should be doing it, and how, should be done away with. If tradition agrees with you, and works for your family, then that’s exactly what you should be doing. Working parents? A single parent? Whatever your situation, as a parent myself, I think the most important thing is that we parent. How, or who, or what, doesn’t matter so much as long as our children are loved, safe, happy and secure.

We salute you, dads of the world. For those of you who give your all to your children, who show up, play, cook, do bedtime routines, who read stories and tuck your children in at night, who create the safety and security children need and crave – thank you.

What will you do this Father’s Day to celebrate the man, or men, in your life?