If someone were to ask you what falls on the third Sunday in June, would you know it’s Father’s Day? Inspired by her father, a Civil War veteran that reared six children as a single parent, daughter Sonora Smart Dodd founded the unofficial holiday in June 1910. While the complementary Mother’s Day was embraced more readily, it took considerably more time for society to hop on board with a day for dads. Despite the fact that President Woodrow Wilson wanted to make it an official holiday in 1916, Congress thwarted him due to fears it would become too commercialized. (This ended up being an inevitable fate for this and all other holidays.) It was not until 1972 that it became a permanent national holiday after President Richard Nixon signed it into law.
Father’s Day still suffers from the stereotypical scenario of offspring recognizing their pop with presents like cheap cologne and garish ties. Speaking from the vantage point of fatherhood, I implore you dear reader to steer away from these outdated notions and give your dad the most valuable and cherished of gifts—quality time and a chance to reminisce. It’ll certainly leave more of a mark than yet another bottle of Old Spice.
– DGdR
