I used to believe that Father’s Day was something of a runner-up holiday, a consolation prize awarded to fathers after the gala celebration of Mother’s Day, with its flowers and chocolates and brunch. It’s a day given to fathers, somewhat begrudgingly, when they’re given the honor of standing over the Weber burning steaks, chicken and fish, until they’re finally released from toil, and allowed to collapse on the couch and watch the Dodgers game in peace, with a cold one in hand. And, as ever, I was wrong.
Father’s Day, in one incarnation or another, has been around for centuries. In the Middle Ages, it was St. Joseph’s Day, honoring the earthly father of Jesus.
In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the ancestors of Christ are celebrated with the Sunday of the Forefathers — beginning with Adam. (It’s a long list!) Indeed, there’s hardly a country on Earth that does not honor fathers in some fashion — from Defender of the Fatherland Day in Russia and Belarus, to Soldiers’ Day in Mongolia, to Dia do Pai in Macau. Father’s Day as we know it began on Mother’s Day in 1909.
A woman named Sonora Louise Smart Dodd sat in her church in Spokane, Washington, listening to a sermon on the sacrifices mothers make for their children. The sermon touched a nerve. Her mother had died when Dodd was young, and she had been raised by her father, who also raised five sons.
He did it all alone — farming the land, caring for the children, doing the double work of a father and .
