Happy Family Day

On Monday, Ontario celebrated its second Family Day. The idea was to create a February holiday for the clan to get together and spend quality time. It sounds like a great idea, but is it?

Before I sound too negative, let me applaud the idea. I think it is great that families get together and do stuff. We need more of that. It’s just that I think that the current Family Day needs a bit of tweaking.

I asked members of my ESL class yesterday what they did on Family Day. Most of them spent the day quietly at home. They worked on chores or watched television. None went out and did anything. The same happened in our household. Why?

I live in a small town. When everything is shut down, there isn’t much to do. I went to the YMCA in the morning. Its hours had been reduced so it closed at two in the afternoon. Other than that, only the swimming pool was open. I can’t swim.

If you live in Toronto or Ottawa, there are so many activities that are available to you. You can even go shopping because the Eaton Centre, a vast shopping mall, is considered a tourist attraction. I can’t imagine going to the Ontario Science Centre on Family Day. Wading through the noisy crowds is not my idea of quality time.

I guess I could have gone for a walk, but it wasn’t a very nice day. I prefer to take my strolls in warmer weather.

My guess is that many families did very little together. The kids sat in their rooms watching television or on the computer and the parents did their own thing.

Here are my suggestions to make Family Day a bit more practical.

Make it optional for storeowners. In today’s economic climate, why take away a potential day to make money from people who are trying to make an honest buck? Shopping could then be an option. I would have loved to have gone to a local bookstore and browsed. Another option would have been sauntering through hardware stores looking for that perfect gadget.

Move the day to a friendlier month. February in Ontario is no treat. I know that the timing was chosen to provide a break in the harsh winter, but forcing people to lose a day’s pay, which was my case, in a bleak month adds to the woes.

The people I talked to who liked the idea had kids who participated in winter sports. Family Day is the perfect weekend to hold a hockey tournament or skating competition. Wouldn’t it be great, though, if I traveled with my kids to another city or town that we could go strolling through the vibrant downtown between games instead of being holed up in a motel room?

I feel that in theory Family Day is great. Let’s just adjust it a bit so it gives people many more options of what they can do, especially if you live outside the main cities.