Should we be wishing single moms Happy Father's Day?

Father's Day is around the corner, and for years since I first got my Facebook account, I've noticed a trend of single moms being celebrated along with fathers on this day. The idea behind it is that single mothers play the roles of both mom and dad to the children that they raise. I didn't pay much attention to this before but now that I think about it, the question of whether we should wish single mothers Happy Father's Day is one worth thinking about.

We live in an era where gender roles and other kind of ideologies are becoming more and more fluid. Decades ago, the conventional family picture had a mother and a father in it. Now, Modern Family style, we do find two women or two men being parents through adoption or surrogacy. It's not uncommon, also, that children are raised solely by their grandparents or by a single parent, be it the dad or the mom. The point I'm getting to is that, if whoever raises the child is commended for taking on a different role in addition to the one they already have, then that alone is a way of saying that the role they play is incomplete. 

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Women being praised for being present in their children's lives and supposedly taking on the role of the father while the father is absent doesn't do justice to the fact that they are single parents who do a good job with raising a child exclusively through the role that they play already. It really isn't crazy to think that single mothers are good enough at parenting without having to evaluate or compare their parenting based on traditional parenting standards or to point out that their family portrait is not traditionally complete. 

The African proverb "It takes a village to raise a child" somewhat attests to the fact that, while there are differences in the conventional roles that are played in raising a child (for example, mothers being seen as nurturers and fathers being seen as protectors or leaders), there is no one role that is more important or more relevant than another. All roles are and can be sufficient. What the whole trend does is imply that a single mother's role is not complete and not sufficient as it is.

It's obvious that mothers need to be commended and appreciated for the parenting they do, and they are: it's called Mother's Day. Nevertheless, the fact that they are made to believe they're doing a man's job at the same time is not the sweetest way to appreciate them. They are not fathers, but they are - simply and sufficiently - mothers who teach their sons how to be decent men and teach their daughters to know their value; all while paying bills, pursuing careers, and being exemplary leaders to their children in the best ways that they know how. 

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