As a proud father of three young children, Father’s Day is very special to me. I pulled together some data about the holiday for a fun blog post, but with three kids it’s difficult to find time to write. Evenings end with me and my wife collapsed on the couch debating whether we can maintain consciousness through an hour long DVR’d show, or if we shouId just go with a sitcom.
The kids are happily playing together so, powered by coffee, I’ll try and bang this out. I hope you enjoy some of these tidbits. I particularly find interesting the data on…
[Cam, I appreciate that you can rhyme words with “butt”. You don’t have to repeat them over and over. Daddy’s trying to work here, OK? Thanks.]
So…uhhh…the data. Right. Using SAS Visual Analytics, it was easy to visualize data on gifts, spending and other aspects of Father’s Day in a variety of ways.
The days of dads receiving the annual neck tie are over. The data indicates a wider variety of gift types which may still touch on some dad stereotypes, but that’s OK. Heck, I love to kick back, crack a small batch sour ale and watch Irish rugby as much as the next guy. I’d like to think the wider variety reflects an important evolution in the role of the father, as described beautifully in the research of…
[Lily, what is all over your hands? Why…why is there even dirt in the house?? That’s supposed to stay in the turtle’s terrarium. Wait…what’d you do with the Duke of Shellington?? Please get him off your bed and put him back where he belongs. No, he can’t nap with you.]
OK…so...lost my train of thought. Let’s talk about the different data visualizations. The line graph shows the amount of money spent on each parent on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day over the last 12 years. I’m curious as to what market forces have led to more being spent overall, and particularly, the widening gap between dads and moms. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with mama getting the bigger payday. Perhaps the overall increasing commercialization of holidays has…
[What happened, Bren? ... Well, I bet that does hurt. Cats don’t like to be tackled. Let’s get you a Band-Aid. … Remember, Target didn’t have “Miles from Tomorrowland” Band-Aids so we got you “Doc McStuffins” instead. … IT WILL WORK JUST THE SAME!]
OK…umm… I’m surprised that such a small portion of Father’s Day gift purchases are done online, and that there are still people that buy from catalogs. Sharper Image catalogs were pretty sweet, though. Maybe in-store purchases remain popular because you can involve the kids in the process more? I wonder if the trend holds up in Mother’s…
[Please don’t touch the laptop, Cam. Yeah, it doesn’t have a touchscreen like Mama’s iPad. Could you please grab me a tissue? I need to wipe whatever this is off the screen. Wash your hands while you’re in there, too.]
So… the word cloud’s interesting. It’s based on Twitter data and pulls together tweets using #fathersday. Lots of commercial promotional content popped up and, amusingly but not surprisingly, Star Wars is prominent. It would be cool to get a replica Millennium Falcon. I would really enjoy it the entire week before it was destroyed.
[Guys, guys, I’m so close to being done here. … You don’t need a snack. You had breakfast an hour ago. OK, fine, grab some grapes and eat them at the table. … I did not say grab cheese sticks and go to the playroom!!]
Sigh…as you can see, countries around the world celebrate Father’s Day, though on different dates. So we dads get love year round, across the world and in our own homes. It’s truly the most difficult and most rewarding job we’ll ever have. I wish all the dads out there a great Father’s Day full of joy, fun and maybe a quiet hour to yourself. Good luck with that.
[Hey, honey. Glad you’re home. I’m going to sit in the garage for 10 minutes with a sour ale. I know it’s 9am. Sorry about the cheese sticks. Love you.]
While inspired by true events, this blog post is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living, dead or exhausted, is entirely coincidental. The data, however, is real. Brent's dashboard data sources include:
