Stop using dad slur to describe hats!

The day after the Golden State Warriors won the NBA championship, a work friend purchased four official NBA champion caps from a Warriors team store – for herself, her husband, her father and her father-in-law.

Nice, right? But when another co-worker – who buys a lot of sports gear – came by our cubicles to see it, he responded with disdain.

"It's a dad hat."

A dad hat?

A dad hat?!?

My friend who bought the hat agreed. But she defended the choice, because among the recipients were her father and her father-in-law.

A dad hat? I was flabbergasted, like a father on an old TV sitcom.

I asked my co-workers – both (no surprise) younger than me – what they meant. Not what they meant by "dad hat" (I get that it means the kind of hat a dad would wear), but what made it so.

The answer? The rounded brim and the fact that it was a snapback, which allows the user to adjust it. Their contempt was obvious. Only a dad would wear something like that.

I snapped.

"I just want to let you know that I am offended that you use the term 'dad' as a slur," I said, voice rising. "We members of the fatherhood community don't consider it appropriate for you to degrade something by using the term 'dad’ as a derogatory term. Dad isn't a negative word."

They stammered and looked for a way to soften the blow. No need to give the old man a stroke or give him the vapors, they probably thought.

I was just getting started.

"I have been a dad for nearly half my life," I said. "And anyway . . . who wears hats with flat bills? They look stupid!"

Both co-workers looked away in embarrassment. I was acting like . . . a dad, I guess. All that was missing was a demand that they go to their rooms.

I'm right, though. About the cap (no need for discussion) and the use of "dad" as a pejorative term.

You hear it all the time now. Dad jokes. Dad shorts. A dad cap. And strangely, the idea that some women are attracted to a "dad body."

Dad jokes? Meaning, I presume clever wordplay that requires intelligence to understand. Or, perhaps, a gag about bodily functions. Those are dumb?

Dad shorts? Cargo shorts, I guess. Which are handy if you have things that you need to store in all those pockets.

And the "dad body" concept is perhaps most irritating. Oh, sure, it's sometimes presented as something that women somehow desire – a soft, doughy, out-of-shape man.

First of all, that premise seems unlikely. Secondly, it's always presented with a sense of irony: How about this? Women like a dad body! And thirdly . . . why is that a dad body?

Arnold Schwarzenegger is a dad. Vin Diesel is a dad. Dwayne Johnson is a dad.

But "dad body" is used as a slur. Like dad hat, dad shorts and dad jokes (example: Our wedding was so emotional, even the cake was in tiers." Get it?), it is offensive to those of us in the life.

Stop using dad as a slur.

Or you'll be on restriction!

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.