Father's Day

We just had another Father's Day , and if you blinked you probably missed it. Let's face it. Father's are the second class citizens in most places in the world. As Rodney Dangerfield used to say they " get no respect".  While the world flutters and gushes  for mom on Mother's Day, many fathers go unrecognized on their day. Some in the family see dad as the stranger who earns the money to pay the bills, the sugar daddy of the family. And mom is seen as all knowing and loving. Even on TV sitcoms mom is never wrong, while dad is often the klutz the kids just tolerate.

Oh well,  life isn't fair, I guess. Anyway, in honor of the dads of the world let's look at the history of Father's Day.
 On July 19, 1910, the governor of the U.S. state of Washington proclaimed the nation's first “Father’s Day.” Was this madness?  Moms everywhere said, "Why"?  The campaign to celebrate the nations fathers did not meet with the same enthusiasm as did Mother's Day. One florist at the time on hearing about the new Father's Day explained, “fathers haven't the same sentimental appeal that mothers have.” No kidding.

But the founder of Father's Day, Sonora Smart Dodd, one of six children raised by a widower,  was appreciative towards dad and  helped to establish an official equivalent to Mother's Day. She went to local churches in Spokane, Washington, the YMCA, shopkeepers and government officials to drum up support for her idea, and she was successful because Washington State celebrated the nation’s first statewide Father's Day on July 19, 1910.  It's nice to see that a woman created the impetus for Fathers Day.

But Wait! Before I give we male pigs too much honor, one of the biggest reasons it took do long to create a day for dad was instantly revealed after President Calvin Cooledge called for a national Father's Day. On hearing that men were to be honored with a day too, many men said "nonsense" and "who needs it". As one historian who has studied the first Father's Day wrote, men “scoffed at the holiday’s sentimental attempts to domesticate manliness with flowers and gift-giving, or they derided the proliferation of such holidays as a commercial gimmick to sell more products, often paid for by the father himself.”

Sigh....it seems we dads might be better off forgetting the whole Father's Day thing. After all, who needs another necktie gift.