Father's Day gift tab trails outlay for moms

Now we know. It’s mommie dearest and daddy second.

The average person will spend $94.32 for Father’s Day gifts this year. And sure, it’s up from $90.89 in 2009, but it's a far cry from the more than $125 shelled out on average last month for mothers, according to surveys commissioned by the National Retail Federation, a major retail trade association.

Mothers were projected to receive $126.90 in Mother’s Day gifts last month, compared to $123.89 last year, the group said. The day was projected to flood the retail industry with $14.6 billion in sales.

Dads might bring in a measly $9.8 billion.

“That’s not fair,” said father-of-three Alan Weinreb, a Syosset-based attorney whose family will take him this weekend to the Picasso exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. “And I want something good.”

Weinreb said he’s really busy with work and that helps support the family. “I have one kid in law school, one kid who works in Wall Street – he’s like a beginner, hardly makes any money – and then I have one off to college next year. So I have two apartments in the city that I pay for and don’t get to use.”

But he gave the spending disparity a second thought.

“I really don’t care,” Weinreb said. “But I want my kids to be nicer to my wife than they are to me. She does a lot more for them. She’s constantly with them, talking to them. She speaks to those kids every single day. They are attached to the hips by their cell phones. I would rather them spend their money on her than on me.”

Now doesn’t that sound like a Mother’s Day gift?