F

ather’s Day always sneaks 
up on me. I’ll be studying 
or watching TV, and all of 

a 
sudden 
an 

ad will appear, 
always saying 
something 
like 
“Here’s 

the best gift you can get for your 
dad” or something. The pang that 
always comes along with seeing 
stuff father-related doesn’t sting 
as much as it once did — I’m 
usually able to move on with my 
day without any issue. I’ve learned 
that this type of pain isn’t going 
away, but I’ve also learned how to 
live with it.

Let me explain: the summer 

before my first year of high school, 
my father passed away from 
pancreatic cancer. This period 
of time, the time that my father 
was sick and dying, has strongly 
affected my outlook on life and 
has defined me as a person. I 
honestly couldn’t tell you what 
I would be like if my dad were 
still alive — perhaps less serious, 
less empathetic, more carefree. 
In all honesty, the traits that I 
have gained since my father’s 
passing are some of the ones that 
I value the most. I try not to think 
about what life would be like if 
my dad were still alive — he’s 
not coming back and any time 
spent wondering is, to me at least, 
counter-productive. I’ve come to 
accept his death — I’m no longer 
angry about it, and I’ve stopped 
claiming that the world is unfair. 
I’m even pretty good at stopping 
myself 
from 
getting 
jealous 

at my friends who have good 
relationships with their fathers, 
because hey, why shouldn’t they 
be able to enjoy what I’m not able 
to? This is the main reason why 
I try not to have a problem with 
Father’s Day.

Still, Father’s Day presents an 

awkward problem for me and my 
family. Usually, around Father’s 
Day, people will politely ask one 
another what they plan on doing 
to celebrate. I’ll usually answer 
something like “I’ll give my 
grandpa a call” or “I’m visiting 
my uncle.” A lot of the time, the 
person asking the question will 
accept my answer. Some of the 
time, the person asking will look 
a little confused, as if I hadn’t 
answered the question correctly, 
but won’t continue with any more 
inquisition. Rarely, the person 
asking will bring up the question 
“Why aren’t you spending any 
time with your father?” which 
usually starts an uncomfortable 
but short conversation about how 
my father passed away — it was 
cancer, thank you for your apology. 
It’s not that I don’t like talking 
about my father — in all honesty, 
I enjoy talking about him. He was 
an interesting guy and a loving 
dad, and he has given me a lot of 
good stories. And the profound 
effect that his death has had on 
my life and personality means that 
someone can’t truly understand 
me until they understand what 
I have gone through. So in daily 
life, I don’t really try to avoid the 
topic of my father’s death. Yeah, I 
guess it sometimes makes people 
uncomfortable, but I’d rather talk 
about it on my own terms instead 
of having others ask me about it.

So 
why 
does 
being 
asked 

about Father’s Day make me 
uncomfortable? 
I 
guess 
it’s 

because a part of me is always 
expecting someone to ask, “So why 
aren’t you spending any time with 
your father?” Though, admittedly, 
this only happens rarely, I still 
feel the sting, as if the fact that 
my father has passed meant that 
I can no longer celebrate Father’s 
Day the ways it’s supposed to 
be celebrated. Commercials and 

advertisements 
that 
support 

the heteronuclear family only 
work to exacerbate this feeling. 
This belief that one must have a 
father to celebrate Father’s Day 
is inherently problematic. For 
14 years of my life, I was lucky 
enough to have had a father, but 
others have been blessed with 
two parents of a same gender, a 
single parent, grandparents, along 
with their own variations of what 
family means. Where are the days 
for these types of parents and 
these types of families?

I’m not suggesting that we 

change the name of Father’s 
Day, and I’m not asking for those 
with fathers that they have good 
relationships with to start feeling 
guilty. I just wish that Father’s Day 
was a bit more flexible. People need 
to stop assuming that everyone 
has a father or that everyone has a 
good relationship with their father. 
Father’s Day shouldn’t exclusively 
be about the man whose genetics 
you share — it should be about the 
masculine people in your life who 
have positively affected you.

This past Sunday, my sister 

and I went to a restaurant in Ann 
Arbor that we believe our father 
would have liked, and we talked 
and reminisced about our father. 
After, I gave my grandpa and one of 
my uncles a call to thank them for 
all that they have done for me. My 
sister and I aren’t the only people 
who didn’t celebrate Father’s Day 
in the traditional sense — people 
all over celebrated this day in the 
way that best corresponds to the 
masculine figure in their life. I 
hope that we all remain sensitive 
to this, and that we don’t forget 
that Father’s Day, and any other 
day dedicated to family, is what we 
make of it.

—Elena Hubbell can be reached 

at elepearl@umich.edu. 

4

Thursday, June 23, 2016
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
OPINION

LARA MOEHLMAN

EDITOR IN CHIEF

JEREMY KAPLAN

EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR

BRADLEY WHIPPLE

MANAGING EDITOR

420 Maynard St. 

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at 

the University of Michigan since 1890.

Prioritizing legalization
W

hen 
then-Senator 

Barack 
Obama 
was 

evaluating a potential 

run 
for 
the 

presidency 
in 
2006, 
he 

was asked if 
he’d 
smoked 

marijuana. 
His 
response 
was, 

“When I was young, I inhaled 
frequently. That was the point (of 
smoking).” He was praised for his 
candor, and the statement drew 
a sharp contrast between former 
President Bill Clinton’s waffling 
when he described having smoked 
marijuana once but not having 
inhaled.

There is also a video recording 

of former California Governor 
Arnold Schwarzenegger smoking 
marijuana and proudly stating he 
had also inhaled.

What was not discussed was how 

either of these politicians’ careers 
would have virtually ended had 
they been caught for doing what 
they admitted to doing.

In 2014, law enforcement across 

this 
country 
arrested 
700,993 

people 
for 
marijuana-related 

incidents. Of those 700,993, 88 
percent of them were for possession 
of marijuana.

There is a certain irony in 

incarcerating 
Americans 
for 

actions that the highest level of civil 
servants have admitted to doing. 
Furthermore, there is a tremendous 
financial, social and economic cost 
to incarcerating Americans for 
possession of marijuana (among 
other non-violent drug offences).

In his final year in office, 

President Obama should take steps 
that work toward the legalization of 
marijuana, starting with a mandate 
that the federal government will 
refuse to fund incarcerations for 
marijuana-related crimes. Doing so 
will save precious tax dollars, give 
correctional officers much needed 
bandwidth to pursue violent crimes, 
and siphon money away from black 
markets and into the coiffeurs of a 
federal government that has run 
a large deficit for the past several 
decades.

According to the Urban Institute 

Justice Policy Center, we spend an 
average of $21,006 per person per 
year to incarcerate someone in a 
minimum-security prison in the 
United States. With total U.S. debt 
at more than $19 trillion, this does 
not feel like money well-spent.

The other side of the economic 

cost is the toll that incarceration has 
on the labor force. It not only takes 

years away from people’s working 
lives, but it teaches this population 
how to become better criminals. 
Better-trained 
criminals 
mean 

more resources will be siphoned 
away from police departments as 
well.

Keeping people out of the 

correctional system for non-violent 
drug offenses is another benefit 
of marijuana legalization. In an 
interview in Vice with Jeff Smith 
— a professor in urban policy at 
the Milano School of International 
Affairs, Management, and Urban 
Policy in New York — and a former 
inmate, they recounted how jails 
can be a dehumanizing place filled 
with rape and how many prisons 
are permissive of rape among the 
inmates. Furthermore, according 
to Smith, “In prison, your bonds 
with 
law-abiding 
society 
are 

being broken down and your bond 
with other criminals is being 
strengthened.” The human cost of 
the correctional system is felt when 
inmates’ relationships to society 
get eroded and as these individuals 
exit prison, they struggle to find 
housing, job opportunities and 
rehabilitation.

Legalizing marijuana has the 

potential to bring in millions 
of dollars in tax revenue. As of 
February 
2015, 
Colorado 
has 

generated over $53 million in 
tax revenue, which was short of 
estimates that the measure would 
bring in more than $70 million in 
the first year.

As of October 2015, 58 percent 

of 
Americans 
back 
marijuana 

legalization, up from 36 percent in 
2003. In Michigan, the necessary 
number of signatures (320,000) 
were gathered, but a recent rule 
change 
means 
that 
marijuana 

legalization will probably not be on 
the ballot in November.

Meanwhile, 
marijuana 
gets 

dismissed in national politics as 
an issue for stoners, with many 
politicians putting it low on their 
priority 
list. 
President 
Obama 

said that marijuana legalization 
is not one of his top priorities 
for 2016. However, there are few 
issues 
where 
executive 
action 

has the immediate potential to 
save tens of billions of dollars and 
keep hundreds of thousands of 
non-violent offenders out of jail. 
Marijuana is one of those issues, 
and we should all care more about 
legalization.

—Shawn Danino can be 

reached at danino@umich.edu

Father’s Day without a father

ELENA 
HUBBELL

SHAWN
DANINO

