Filial Piety Awareness Day

Mother’s Day — that annual festival of last-minute teleflorism — is once again upon our sorry selves. It is not the worst Hallmark Holiday of the year, of course. That honor would go to Father’s Day, for which there is not even an accepted, go-to, eleventh-hour gift alternative. Still, it is a celebration we’d do well to drop from the calendar.

I’m sure there are a few mothers deserving of praise for their efforts, including (I grudgingly admit) the one pictured above. Possibly some fathers too, at least hypothetically. Still, I’ve been to too many confessional dinner parties with people claiming to be children of parents to believe that there are so many truly outstanding (or even passably competent) child-rearers as to justify a whole day in their collective honor. (And a prime spring weekend slot, to boot!)

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Celebrating Humbug: the ethics of misers and ritual gift-givers

It wouldn’t be particularly novel or interesting for me to assail the crass commercialism of the holiday season. Most of us do it this time each year.

And yet the pattern of insane consumption continues. Why? Because most folks who decry Christmas materialism nevertheless continue to feed the economic machine by participating in the purchase and exchange of generally useless gifts.