Happy Father’s Day

The holiday was invented by a woman who really 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 own 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.

Apparently, part of the delay was due to male resistance to the idea. NBC writes, “American historian Timothy Marr wrote in American Masculinities: A Historical Encyclopedia that in the holiday’s early decades, 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.'”

Evidently, those attitudes have changed — Wikipedia lists over 130 countries that celebrate Father’s Day throughout the year. Besides the United States, 75 others celebrate on the third Sunday of June. These include China, India, Japan, Mexico, and the United Kingdom.

Hallmark estimates that 80 million cards will be exchanged this Sunday, making it the fourth biggest card-sending day of the year. If you’re not among that 80 million, just remember: late is better than never!

Written by NINA WOLPOW