By REP. JAMIE ALLARD
June 21, 2026 – I was six years old when my father died.
At that age, I didn’t fully understand what I had lost. I only knew there was an empty place in my life that never quite went away. As the years passed, I came to understand how much a father matters and how deeply his presence shapes a child.
The next Father’s Day I truly remember came nearly three decades later.
I was 34 years old and had just become a mother myself. My husband was celebrating his first Father’s Day, and I was seeing fatherhood from an entirely different perspective. I wasn’t looking at what I had lost anymore. I was watching what my children were gaining.
For the last 33 years, I have been blessed to share my life with a man who has been an extraordinary father.
He took our daughters fishing and hunting. He bought the sporting gear. He was the ride-or-die parent who showed up for every game, every event, every milestone, and every challenge. Even when military deployments took him away from home, he stayed connected. He wrote letters. He made phone calls. He found ways to be present even when he couldn’t physically be there.
His steady presence helped shape the women our daughters have become.
Children need stability. They need guidance. They need someone who shows them what responsibility, sacrifice, courage, and love look like. My husband has been that person for our family. He has worked hard, played hard, loved harder, and provided a life that I could only have dreamed of as a young girl who lost her own father far too soon.
Most importantly, he set the standard.
One day, when our daughters marry, the men they choose will inevitably be compared to their father. And rightfully so. A good father teaches his children what character looks like. He shows his daughters how they should be treated and shows his sons how they should treat others.
What a difference that will make to my daughters and their families.
Today, fathers and men are often treated as if they are optional. Too often our culture sends the message that masculinity is something toxic, to be corrected rather than celebrated. Men are frequently portrayed as incompetent, unnecessary, or somehow less valuable than they once were.
I believe that message has done real harm.
Strong fathers build strong families. Strong families build strong communities. When we diminish men, we weaken the very institutions that help children thrive.
That’s not to say every family looks the same. Life happens. Some children lose a parent. Some families experience divorce. Some mothers find themselves raising children on their own.
But even in difficult circumstances, we should do everything possible to preserve healthy relationships between children and their fathers. Children benefit from having loving fathers in their lives. They deserve that opportunity whenever it can safely and reasonably be provided.
We should stop treating fathers as secondary. We should stop apologizing for masculinity. And we should stop trying to turn men into something they were never meant to be.
Let the men in our lives be men.
Love them. Support them. Appreciate them.
This Father’s Day, I am grateful for the father I lost, even for the lessons his absence taught me, and for the husband who has spent more than three decades showing our daughters what a devoted father looks like.
To all the dads across Alaska: Thank you. Happy Father’s Day.
Rep. Jamie Allard serves in the Alaska House of Representatives for District 23, Eagle River-Chugiak. She is a US Army veteran.
5 thoughts on “Jamie Allard: We lift up our fathers on this day. We should do so every day.”
Yep. A wife doesn’t understand the positive impact an husband as in her life and how much easier life is until he is gone to become a widow becoming a single woman once again doing life alone.
Because of culture has put men down today’s men don’t even know their own value and purpose to their families and workplaces if he hasn’t let culture weakened him.
My advice is women if you have a husband even if you have a boyfriend, don’t complain about him. Not only do you look like ungrateful thankless foolish woman, he can always leave you. Guaranteed if a woman keeps on complaining about him he will leave you.
Then she’ll really have something to complain about.
From all the Dads Jamie
Thank you
Happy Father’s Day Joe!
Is she running for an election?