Pop-osition 3) The meaning and authority invested in the word “father” or “pappy” comes from a globalized legacy of European imperialism. 

Father. That word is so huge. Immediately I think of my father, who is endemic of a particular brand of Ashkenazi Jewish masculinity. Over the past few years I’ve watched my mother and father clash over gendered roles in their relationship. Since becoming disabled, my father can no longer play the part of strong, stoic caretaker. This has lead to an upheaval in their connection to the normative roles presented by the heterosexual nuclear family. I think a lot about the way that fatherhood, motherhood, and family as an institution have been colonized. “Father” is just a word, a box that contains meaning, yet it carries so much weight in our increasingly globalized culture. The way we invoke fatherhood is not separate from my father, “Our Father who art in heaven…”, or the histories of colonialism and manifest destiny.