Sunday is Father's Day:Mrs. John B. Dodd of Spokane, WA, came up with the idea for Father's Day back in 1910. Spokane's mayor, who proclaimed the day to be June 19, embraced it.
Actually, Sonora Dodd thought of the idea for Father's Day while listening to a Mother's Day sermon in 1909. Sonora wanted a special day to honor her father, WILLIAM SMART. He was a Civil War veteran who lost his wife while she gave birth to their sixth child. He was left to raise the newborn and his other five children by himself on a rural farm in eastern Washington state.After Sonora became an adult she realized the selflessness her father had shown in raising his children as a single parent and wanted to honor that parental sacrifice. Since he was born in June, she chose to hold the first Father's Day celebration in Spokane, where she lived, on that 19th of June in 1910.
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In one of the few things he ever did in his administration worth remembering, President CALVIN COOLIDGE supported the idea of a national Father's Day, which was informally celebrated in the sixth month of the year, catching on in other countries, until finally, in 1966 President LYNDON JOHNSON signed a presidential proclamation declaring the third Sunday of June as Father's Day. President RICHARD NIXON signed the law which finally made it permanent in 1972. Most countries around the globe now have some sort of Father's Day --quite a few on the third Sunday in June but also at other times of the year.
Quotable: "My father believed in frontier justice. He'd say, 'I don't know who broke the clock in the front hall, so you're all going to be punished.' It seemed unfair at the time, but now that it has become the basis for our country's foreign policy, I'm starting to think my father was onto something."
--Conan O'Brien
PS: it's probably true, the often-quoted nugget that more collect calls are made on Father's Day than on any other day of the year. That became more commonly quoted as fact after it appeared in something called "The Book of Useless Information" in 2002 (page 240, if you must know).Editor's note: I used to think that Father's Day was occasion when Dad could relax around the house, put off doing chores, and nap on the couch. Then I found out, that's just like every other day.
--So, if Moms have Mother's Day, Dads have Father's Day, ya know what Single guys have? Palm Sunday.
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What to get dad?Americans will spend $15.5 billion dollars on the old guy for Father’s Day this year! See Business, below, for the details and breakdown.
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Your dad and your job: There's an old English Proverb that says, "One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters." We sometimes overlook a father's influence, especially since moms always get a lot more attention --flowers, nice gifts, brunch on Mother's Day; for Father's Day, dad gets another tie.
STEPHAN POULTER, a clinical psychologist and author of "The Father Factor," who talks about five different kinds of dads and how they influence our career choices and who we function on the job. Here they are:
1. Time Bomb Dad. He was the explosive father. Often a great guy but sometimes unpredictable, maybe drunk some days, moody on others. Kids of this kind of father enter the workplace and are often very anxious, and may have trouble feeling safe and developing trust. But often they're skilled at conflict resolution and may be effective negotiators or personnel managers.
2. The Super Achiever. This is the dad who's all about performance. He's very task-oriented. Many times his children felt like whatever they did wasn't good enough for him. On the other hand, in the workplace, they're often the most productive because they're able to finish tasks, get jobs done, and do it without a lot of red tape, or by cutting through it. But they also may have a very hard time relating to their supervisor because they don't wanna speak up and get creamed.
3. The Passive Dad. The joke might be, is dad asleep on the couch or is he dead? He's a great guy who showed his love by action, not words. He's the guy who worked for General Motors for 30 years. Many times the sons and daughters of a passive dad are also passive in their own lives. They often get labeled as underachievers or unmotivated, but really, they're just passive.
4. The Absent Dad. This is when you hear, "Oh, I never knew my dad, my parents got divorced when I was three." This is a dad who's not really involved in the life of his kids, emotionally, mentally or physically. In the workplace, kids of this dad may be the angry personality, or they may turn their anger into passion and be very productive.
5. The Compassionate Mentor. It's the dad who motivates, helps his kids find out what they wanna do and provides the tools to get them there. This is the dad we all wanna be, or want to tell everyone we all had, but only about 10 percent of dads fit this category.
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Often dads fit a little bit into more than one category, or they show signs of another category as they and their children age and as the relationship between father and children changes. One could be a better father in his 40s and 50s than in his 20s and 30s. Or not.
At the same time, the influence of your father is ongoing in you as you change in life, and as you change if and when you become a father, and throughout the changing relationship between you and your children as you age together. That idea sort of parallels a great quote about fathers by someone named
FRANK PITTMAN: "Fathering is not something perfect men do, but something that perfects the man."
FYI: It's worth mentioning that Poulter's own father does not speak to him now that the book has been published