Father’s Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June in 55 nations around the world, including this one. For those of you who are thinking, wait, it’s June, which Sunday is that… as you read this – that’s this Sunday – June, 20th. Don’t worry, we here at Kid Glue have plenty of ideas to help you celebrate the father in your life if you don’t yet have a plan.
Father’s Day has only been an official holiday since 1972, though the first attempts to create a day to celebrate fathers were made just after Mother’s Day became a national holiday in 1909. Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington was listening to a sermon at Spokane Central Methodist Episcopal Church about the newly minted Mother’s Day holiday when she decided that fathers, like her own, who raised six children alone, deserved recognition too.
With the help of her pastor, Reverend Dr. Conrad Bluhm and the Spokane YMCA, Dodd set about organizing the first Father’s Day. On June 19th, 1910, the young members of the YMCA wore roses to church in honor of their fathers – red for a living father, white for one who had passed away.
Unlike Mother’s Day, which was accepted with open arms, Father’s Day was greeted with little enthusiasm and the occasional jeer from those who thought it was just another attempt to fill up the calendar with meaningless holidays. Woodrow Wilson was the first President to attempt to make Father’s Day a national holiday in 1916. Two congressional rejections later, President Lyndon Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers in 1966, designating the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. Richard Nixon signed it into law six years later in 1972.
If you’re lucky enough to have someone in your life that you call dad, make sure you give them a call on Sunday!
