Father’s Day is around the
corner. The day is celebrated on the third Sunday in June every year. This
year, the day falls on June 21.
Celebrated in 21 countries, the
dates for Father’s Day are different in several countries.
Origin of Father’s Day
There are many theories
associated with the origin of the Father’s Day. According to the holidayspot,
the first theory regarding the celebration of Father’s Day was established on
June 19, 1908, in the State of Washington when an independent celebration of
Father’s Day, a few weeks later, took place on July 5, 1908, in Fairmont, West
Virginia.
Hence the first Father’s Day was
recognized in West Virginia, while a church service was going on at Williams
Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South. Grace Golden Clayton, who reportedly
suggested the service to the pastor at Williams Memorial, is said to have been
inspired to celebrate fathers post a mine explosion, a few months before, in
the nearby community of Monongah. This explosion ended 361 lives, many of them
fathers and recent immigrants to the States from Italy.
The other most popular theory is
that the holiday was invented by a woman who liked her dad. Sonora Smart Dodd,
a woman from Spokane, WA, was inspired to create Father’s Day after listening
to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909. “Don’t you think fathers deserve a place in
the sun, too?” she is said to have asked the minister. Dodd’s mother had died
and she and her siblings had been raised by their father.
Dodd picked June for the
celebration (the month of her dad’s birthday) and in 1910, the first Father’s
Day was celebrated in Spokane. The day didn’t become official nationwide until
1972, when Nixon officially declared the third Sunday of every June Father’s
Day.
It took more than 60 years from
the birth of the idea to Father’s Day being recognized as a federal holiday,
and a lot sure did happen at that time. According to History.com, in the 1920s
and 1930s, there was a national movement to get rid of both Mother’s and
Father’s Day and replace them with one “Parent’s Day.”
Importance of Father’s Day
The celebration of Father’s Day intends to highlight the importance and challenges of fatherhood. Besides observance of Father’s Day provide children an opportunity to express love and respect for their fathers. The sentiment goes a long way in strengthening the father-child relationship and consequently in the emotional development of a child. The role of father is often relegated to a secondary status as compared to a mother. But all of us know that father is just as important for a child as the mother is. If mothers are the heroes of child-rearing, the significance of a father in the development and emotional well being of a child is no less.