Father's Day
Father's Day
As the roles of men and women have been subjected to equalization, the importance of fatherhood is growing. That is why Father’s Day came to existence in the US – in order to balance Mother’s Day.
The holiday honoring all the dads is observed on the 3rd Sunday of June in the US, UK, Ireland, and Canada. Australia and New Zealand celebrate it on the 1st Sunday in September. It is the day to appreciate the effort that the father puts into nurturing and raising children. The holiday does not have as much history and commerce behind it as Mother’s Day, but it is still a significant observance.
Some people connect Father’s Day to the ancient sun worship festivals, because the Sun used to be mythologized as the father of the universe. With the coming of the new faith, the Catholic church had begun a celebration of the importance of Saint Joseph that has lasted for centuries.
In the United States, which is the country of the holiday’s inception, the issue of creating an observance mirroring Mother’s Day was raised by women: Jane Adams and Sonora Smart Dodd, and men: J.J. Berringer and Harry C. Meek. Adams asked for establishing the holiday in Chicago in 1911, but was declined. Berringer organized a Father’s Day mass in the Irvington Methodist church in Vancouver, Washington in 1912. Meek has struggled to create the holiday since 1915, and was even named the “Originator of Father’s Day” by the Lions Club.
The person who succeeded at promoting the observance was a proud daughter of William Jackson Smart; Dodd first organized a celebration in 1910 in Spokane, Washington. Although the idea was accepted by the local clergy and in 1916 President Wilson honored it himself, the holiday did not become a nationwide occurrence until the 1930s, when Dodd put all her strength and effort into establishing it. It was not prominent, however, before the end of Second World War, which was a promotion of manly sacrifice itself. Other countries had already adopted the holiday then. New Zealand, for example, had its first observance in Auckland in 1929, and Father’s Day’s importance has started to grow. In Australia, the date was set to September in 1935, and New Zealand followed closely after. It was not until 1972 in the United States, however, that Richard Nixon proclaimed the holiday as a national appreciation day in the country.
Father’s Day is not a type of holiday that gives employees a day off, especially because it falls on a Sunday in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. It is not an ordinary day, though. According to estimates, only Americans spend $1 billion on Father’s Day gifts. Dads all around the world receive mainly clothing items and different types of food and drink, but there is a prominent custom to engage in some kind of active entertainment with the father, such as a weekend trip or a sports practice, in which he is the teacher. Because the holiday is during the summer time, outdoor activities are the most popular propositions for the day. Thus children embrace the bond with the father which, contrary to popular belief, is in most cases not frail at all.