Don’t Forget to Give Dad His Day Too

We all have fathers. Some we view as rock solid figures inspiring awe and fear. Some we see as nurturers, or warriors, or loving caregivers, or breadwinners. No matter how one describes his or her father, they are an amalgam what makes up the male of our species.

There are those that think Father’s Day was created to sell greeting cards, or a day designed to compete with Mother’s Day – a common misconception.

Today, Father’s Day is a time when children give Dad a power drill, or share a cold beer, or play softball, or horseshoes in the backyard. If father’s are celebrated, it is more likely to be a contest between children to see if, finally, at some point in their lives, they can beat ‘the old man’ – perhaps in golf, or go karts, or fishing.

We view our Dads differently than we do our Moms. Moms are there when we cut our fingers to make things better. Dads, more than likely, helped us cut that finger in the first place during a football contest, or while helping to tune up the car.

However, the roots of the modern Father’s Day celebration are as unclear as our understanding of the complex human traits that determine what a father is all about.

There are those that credit the creation of a day to celebrate and honor fathers to Grace Clayton who recommended a church service to honor more than 300 men who died the previous winter in a coal mine explosion in West Virginia. That was in 1908. Some think that is logical, since Mother’s Day was first celebrated in Grafton, WVA – a town only 15 miles away from Fairmont, sight of that service.

Others credit Sonora Dodd who pushed for a day in Spokane, Washington to honor her Civil War veteran father who raised her and five siblings alone. She did get the people of Spokane to go along and the first celebration in June was, June 19, some say 1909 and others say 1910.

Regardless of its origins, the day received immediate support from such notables as William Jennings Bryan. The family of President Woodrow Wilson honored him in 1916. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge indicated that Father’s Day should be a national holiday.

However, it was not until President Lyndon Johnson made Father’s Day a holiday in 1966 and established the third Sunday in June as the date, that the celebration became a nationally recognized day. Richard Nixon made it truly official in 1972.