Like some sort of seasonal infection, the Man Cave signs and car-branded stubbie holders have popped up on store shelves again, promoting a brand of hyper-masculinity that hasn’t changed since the Hawke government. When I wrote [this piece] last year about how strange Father’s Day advertising felt as a non-binary Dad, I thought the gap was between my gender and the assumptions made of me as a Dad. But as I see the same slogans pop up all over again, it feels like the problem lies in the way we talk about fatherhood.

Father’s Day has always been built on masculinity, and a very narrow definition of it at that. Now more than ever, though, the holiday feels like a relic of a lost civilisation. I’m 35 now, and I’ve been a parent for more than three years, but all the Father’s Day promotions I see are still pitched at my father, not me. Those Bathurst cars, wrench sets and tie clips don’t just feel like products of a bygone era—they’re radically out of touch with the way millennial families view parenting roles.