Celebrating Fathers

In 1909 while listening to a Mother’s Day Sermon at the Central Methodist Episcopal Church in Spokane, Washington, Sonora Smart Dodd became inspired. She wanted a celebration to honor and commemorate our fathers and forefathers and call it Father’s Day.

It is believed that the first Father’s Day observance was on June 19, 1910 in Spokane, Washington. She wanted to celebrate fathers like her own, William Smart, who was a Civil War veteran. After her mother died when she was 16 years old, he raised her and her 5 siblings. She came up with the idea to wear red roses to honor living fathers and white ones for deceased fathers. The idea didn’t catch on very quickly. She received support from the YWCA, the YMCA and churches but it took many years for it to become an official holiday. Many people found her idea laughable, making jokes and writing satires in local newspapers.

She persisted and a bill was introduced in 1913 to make it an official celebration of Fathers but it didn’t pass. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson wanted to make it official but Congress was afraid it would be commercialized. She did not have a problem with its commercialization but Congress still didn’t pas it. Later in 1924 President Calvin Coolidge also recommended that it be celebrated. A national committee made up of trade groups was formed in the 1930’s attempting to legitimize the holiday by showing that the commercialization would be helpful to businesses. Still no go. In 1957 Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith wrote a proposal and accused congress of singling out Mothers over Fathers and ignoring them for over 40 years. It apparently fell on deaf ears. In 1966 a proclamation for the third Sunday of June to be Father’s Day was made by President Lyndon Johnson. In 1972 under President Nixon’s proclamation it was finally made a national holiday.

The difficulty of getting a Father’s day got me to wondering about the impact of fathers. I know from personal experience how the two men in my life impacted me. My biological father was an absent father. I saw him very little before we started moving because my step dad was in the Air Force. I remember him calling my mother when I was a teenager. All those years I thought he didn’t know where I was. He was calling to see if I could come and take care of him because he had hurt his back. My mother said no because she needed me to help with my siblings. In my early adult years I found him again but I was too much in my own struggles trying to survive my marriage. Years later I learned he had died asking for me. Our dynamic was a very sad one. It is a dynamic that continues to be played out in the lives of others to this day. The few experiences I had with him at least I saw love and joy reflected in his eyes when he looked at me. I felt accepted just as I was.

My stepfather, the man who raised me, taught me paradoxes. He taught me the dark and light side of a human being. He taught me fear in the guise of love and for your own good. In my teens I decided that I had a heavenly Father and two earthly dads. Experiences with both my dad’s gave me the lessons of my lack of value and worth; that relationship was only available at their convenience, not based on my needs; that authority will hurt you; that I have to fend for myself; they will not protect me. My heart has hurt for the loss of these two men; my wisdom from this pain has taught me that they never got their worth so how could they show me mine. Fathers need to understand the importance of protecting and nurturing their children’s emotional needs as well as their physical ones; it’s just as imperative.

Through the years of my counseling practice I repeatedly see the impact of the loss of fathers in their children’s’ lives. We have long believed that men can’t nurture children. That is similar to the long held belief that women couldn’t make it in the work force. Neither has proved to be true. Michael Lamb of the University of Michigan found that children from 7 to 10 months had similar reactions to separation from fathers as they did mothers. Other research indicates that children from seven months to two years are attached to both parents.

It has also been found that fathers who are warm and affectionate with their children help develop positive self-esteem and influence gender role development in both boys’ and girls’. Setting limits, reasonable and firm guidance without imposing their will on the child and teaching moral reasoning contribute to children’s sense of competence.

Children are negatively impacted when they experience loss of their fathers or have infrequent contact following separation or divorce. Research has shown that not only do children miss their fathers they grieve their loss as though they had died. It has been found that father absence has a negative effect on both boys’ and girls’ social behavior and I would add their emotional development. Children who experience father absence appear to be more likely to have behavior problems and don’t do well in school, particularly math and science.

Though fathers are important, children can still be healthy and well adjusted if there father is not in their lives. For children who do not have contact with their fathers; other male adults can provide the experience of a positive male role model. I know I clung to my identity with my biological dad and his family which was a saving grace. I did not want to be ‘attached’ to my step dad’s name. At times in my childhood there was talk of him adopting me? I wanted no part of it. My mother didn’t get why I was so emotional about it. By holding on to my dad’s name I held on to him and the family I only knew for a few short years. They were my family and my body felt the drive to stay connected somehow. My family name was the only thing I had.

A father can not be replaced. The wound of loss lives in the child until they can express and process their feelings and integrate their grief. However, they can create new neurological pathways of positive male interactions which become stronger the more they are repeated. Luckily I had some of them too.