The Commandment instructs mankind to honour both father and mother but it would appear that the word father was written down with invisible ink, given the inordinate attention mothers get on their day compared to the drizzle we get.
It’s so bad that I honestly believe that few fathers can give an immediate answer on what’s the date of Father’s Day. I usually have to google it.
This lack of emphasis on the role of the father in the family exists today despite historians recording that a tradition to celebrate Father’s Day existed thousands of years ago. It was found that some 4 000 years ago in Babylon a son called Elmesu carved a father’s day message on a clay card in which he wished his father a long and healthy life. It is also believed that several other countries had a similar custom of celebrating a Father’s Day in antiquity.
However, that tradition got lost somewhere along the way and we men have to thank a little American woman named Sonora Dodd, who lived in Spokane, Washington. One day in 1909, she heard a traditional Mother’s Day sermon and recalling the many hardships her father had gone through raising her and five other children alone, their mother having died during childbirth, she questioned why there was no special day to honour fathers as there was for mothers.
The story goes that when people laughed and joked at her idea she began a serious campaign lobbying for a Father’s Day. On June 19 the following year, Spokane celebrated its first Father’s Day. However, to pay tribute to her affectionate father, she wished for the day to be on her father’s birthday of June 5, but there was not enough time to prepare so the day came to be celebrated on the third Sunday in June.
in 1916 President Woodrow Wilson approved the day and President Calvin Coolidge subsequently supported it but it was not until 1966 that President Lyndon Johnson signed a Presidential Proclamation officially declaring the third Sunday of June Father’s Day and in 1972 President Richard Nixon established the permanent national observance on that date.
Today people all over the world over thank their fathers and pay tribute to them on this special day, but it’s still taking time catching on in Barbados.
It’s been more than a decade that my own father crossed over to the other side but his memory is still very much with me today. Moreover, I have a number of my own who call me father and who, as they always do, make my day with their calls, messages and visits.
Did you hear about the little girl sitting on her grandfather’s knee and stroking his face when she suddenly asked, “Granddaddy, did God make you?”
“Yes, sweetheart” he answered, “God made me a long time ago.” She then asked, “Granddaddy, did God make me too?” “Yes, indeed, honey” he told her. “But God only made you a little while ago.”
Then feeling the difference in the texture of her face as opposed to his, she noted, “God seems to be getting better with making people.”
That reminds me that I have to say congrats to a grandson, Jason, who was did well in his common entrance and will be at QC from next term.
Happy Father’s Day.
Al Gilkes heads a public relations firm.