The History of Fathers Day
In the beginning, they created a day to honour Mother's. It gave us a chance to say thank you and to pay back, just a little, all that Mum does and had done. A day to celebrate Motherhood, and all was good. Mother's Day is a great success.

Mother's Day has become an event; card, sweets and flower sales sky rockets. The big stores run specials and sales boom. Restaurants and pubs are packed with families treating their mothers to dinner. Mother's Day is the busiest phone day of the year and traffic on that day is a nightmare. And this is how it should be.

In 1909, Sonora Smart Dodd, a devoted daughter from Spokane, Washington, USA, campaigned for a Father's Day celebration in 1909 after listening to a church sermon on the merits of Mother's Day. Her mother had passed away, and her dad had served as both father and mother to his six children for 21 years.

She is credited with being the driving force behind the holiday, because a stateside celebration was proclaimed in 1910. (The date chosen was to be her father's birthday, June 5, however, festivities were moved to June 19, the third Sunday, because there was not enough time to prepare.)

Eventually, annual celebrations were held throughout the US and Canada, but it wasn't until 1972 that the holiday was officially recognised in America. Instead of sitting around basking in the glory of fatherhood, we should participate in the joys of childhood.

So Dad, on this Father's day, take your kids to their favourite places, do their favourite activities, play their games... Try cooking them their favourite meal, give them their baths, read them a story, put them to bed... This fathers day... Be A Dad!

Father's Thought:
There is no doubt that mothers play an all-important leading role in the lives of their children. They are the obvious heroes of child rearing. But what about a father's role? Just how important are the dads of the world compared to the almighty image of mother? Our belief is that fathers play just as important a role as mothers. Different, yes. Possibly not as nurturing, not as all-sacrificing but just as important in the developmental and emotional well being of a child.

Dads are the solid foundation of children's lives. They are the shore we swim to when our arms and legs feel increasingly tired. They are the strength we rely on as we take our first tentative steps into the world. Dads can be tender, tough, fragile or powerful but they are probably the most uncomplicated love we will ever know.

For daughters, Daddy is the first man they adore ... the first man whose eyes shine with overwhelming amazement when they look at us. He is the first man to fall in love with us.

For sons, Daddy is the idol they first aspire to emulate ...
their mirror image of what will be and possibly the only man they will ever feel comfortable loving.

Daddy is the first man who held us, as a loving parent, with a lump in his throat so huge, only the joy of that love could erase the overwhelming pain of choking on unexpected raw emotion. I think when a father holds his newborn baby, he is touched by pure vulnerability for the first time in his adult life, leaving him forever humbled by the unexplained miracles of life.

For mothers, the father of our children is the one person we can trust to watch over our babies as closely as we would. We are secure in the knowledge of their love for our precious offspring. Dad is the only other person in the world as fascinated with every nuance and murmur of our babies. He is the one person on the planet with whom we can indulge our need to brag and carry on about our kid's accomplishments and heartaches ad nauseam ... one who will be just as interested and never yawn in the face of our devotion.

Without Dads, we wouldn't be mums. I would like to take the liberty of thanking them from all our hearts for this honour and for being our partners in this business of raising children. Know how much you are loved and revered, guys! You are our trusted soldiers and we need you more than you will ever realise.

Father
The word father first appeared in Old English spelled as fæder (c 825), having derived from assumed Germanic fadar. It has cognates (relatives) in many other languages: Dutch vader and German Vater, as well as forms in Old Norse, Swedish, Danish, Gothic, etc., Latin and Greek pater, Old Irish athir, and Sanskrit pitar; all of these words share an Indo-European root. The use of the word father as a verb did not occur until 1483. Common synonyms for father are dad and daddy (c 1500), papa (c 1681), pa (c 1811), pop (c 1838), poppa (c 1897), and pops (c 1928). (You only need to capitalise father or its synonyms when you are referring to your own father.)

Golf is a game that many fathers look forward to enjoying before or after being feted on Father's Day. The word originally comes from Scottish (golf, gouf) for the game was first played in Scotland by 1457. The word might be related to Dutch kolf, "bat, club" (derived from Proto-Germanic), but no definite connection has been shown. The verb golf, "to play golf," did not emerge until 1800.

House Dad
Are you one of Britain's growing number of stay-at-home dads? Recent research indicates that there are now over 155,000 men staying at home to look after the home and family. And we're not just house-husbands at home full-time. Increasing numbers of fathers are working part-time and sharing the childcare, or bringing up children by themselves. www.homedad.org.uk is a resourceful website, packed with information, forum and dad's profiles of a changing role today. Visit the www.homedad.org.uk website for more details.