The Father's Challenge

Something a father will do sometimes, to amuse himself, is take his very small child and toss him into the air.  The child is thrown above the father's head, as high as he can be thrown, and the father attempts to catch the child on its way down.  This is called the "Father's Challenge."  It is a test of the dexterity and confidence of fathers.  The Challenge is most often performed in the company of a young woman other than the child's mother.

The Father's Challenge has been observed across all human cultures and societies.  Some tribes, in times of low birth rates, perform a version of the Father's Challenge as a fertility ritual, in which a tribe member tosses a local melon, usually followed by a feast.  This is echoed in "Melon Day," an unofficial holiday celebrated since the early 19th century in western Vermont and northeastern New York, on the last Sunday in April, in which men would traditionally hurl melons in the town square, with the man who hurled his melon the farthest receiving a calf (the holiday is still celebrated in several towns today, but the competitors are now principally children, and the prize is a vat of ice cream).

Here is former President Ronald Reagan at a 1984 campaign event: "And I want to thank Governor Kean for hosting today.  I know dealing with Secret Service today was a veritable 'Father's Challenge' but he's been up to the task," (hold for audience reaction).

The best melon to use for Melon Day or a fertility ritual or for anything really is round and heavy and rough around the edges like a cantaloupe.  The melon should be the size of an average cantaloupe.  If a cantaloupe is not available, use a different melon.  Native tribes have been known to use different melons.

An estimate for the percentage of fathers who attempt the Father's Challenge is 96 percent.  Although rates are high across the board, boys are more likely to be thrown than girls, by a small but statistically significant degree.  Of the 96 percent of fathers who attempt the Father's Challenge, 88 percent are successful.  Those whose fathers fail the Father's Challenge (i.e. those who are dropped) have gone on to become the most brutal criminals in the history of the species.  Dennis Rader, Jared Lee Loughner, Gandhi, Nicolae Ceausescu are some examples of children dropped during the Father's Challenge.  The theory that the derangement of these children results from head trauma has been debunked by extensive neurological analysis, leading researchers to speculate that the derangement comes not from the impact, but from the fall -- from the slipping-through-fingers.

Here is former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge speaking extemporaneously: "The challenges we face in this, aah, you might call it a 'new century of terror' amount to more than a simple worldwide 'Father's Challenge.'  Aah, by which I mean -- I don't mean to trivialize the threat, quite the opposite.  What I'm saying is, aah, this country must remain vigilant against, aah, all such threats."

Melons are found on six continents.  Melons on the five main continents are different but recognizable as melons.  Upon seeing an Asian melon, the typical North American would say, "what a strange melon" ... BUT HE WOULD RECOGNIZE IT IMMEDIATELY AS A MELON.  The Australian melon is blue and rectangular and tastes like ash.

Here is former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, again speaking extemporaneously at a separate event: "I, aah, listen.  I like good melon.  This is, this is, this is -- listen, just -- it's mealy melon.  I'm sorry, I don't want to hurt your feelings, I just ... listen, stop crying."

Recent study suggests that those who were NOT dropped but WERE raised by fathers who failed the Father's Challenge with ANOTHER CHILD showed milder versions of the same symptoms: alienation, anger, confusion.  These milder symptoms were also found in the children of the 4 percent of fathers who do not attempt the Challenge.  Suggesting it is not being dropped that is the cause of these problems, but something in the fathers themselves.  A lack of sureness.  They wear fathers' clothing and their voice drops into the register of fathers, but they are not Fathers.  And so the Challenge is not an event, or a cause, with consequences, but a test -- a revelation, of something already decided, inscribed deep inside a man's melon.