This has been a strange Father’s Day Week.

While the media spends most of the year rightly lamenting the plague of absent, uninvolved fathers, The Atlantic magazine took upon itself this week the opportunity to offer up articles on whether fathers are necessary at all and if we’re on the cusp of the end of men. Slate, meanwhile, offers up an exciting Boston College study which reports a huge increase in men’s participation in domestic and childcare responsibilities, and interprets it as further evidence that men are liars.

Now, to be fair, at least 2 of the 3 articles above are, on the surface, trying to put a positive spin on their attention grabbing headlines. Isn’t it great that women have come so far in a short period of time, as to be the majority of both job-holders and college graduates? And don’t you see? The silver lining to men lying about being involved dads is that not that long ago men would instead be lying about spending their evenings at the bar rather than be seen as the kind of guy who goes home from work and changes diapers!

Okay. I guess. You have to wonder a little at the timing though. I always figured Father’s Day was a chance to thank and encourage dads for what they do, not to marginalize their contributions to family and society AND call them liars. But maybe that’s just me.

Is this some sort of poorly thought out application of John Nash’s non-cooperative game theory, where they just bet against the assumption that everyone else will be running fluff pieces about good ol’ dad? Maybe. Given that it scored “The End of Men” author Hanna Rosen a spot on the Colbert Report, perhaps it worked. They’re definitely getting attention.

And I suppose it’s better than the alternatives, like MomLogic’s annual Father’s Day Week reprinting of their 10 Reasons Father Doesn’t Know Best list, or their gift guides for stinky, couch potato, lazy, and deadbeat dads.