The world will celebrate Father’s Day on June 20, but it is not a celebration in the contemporary sense of the word. In fact, contrary to popular misconception, it was not established as a holiday in order to spur the sales of greeting-card manufacturers. Interestingly, when Father’s Day was first proposed, there were no Father’s Day cards. The day is a tribute to fathers worldwide and a way to bestow honour on them.
An American lady living in Washington, Mrs John B. Dodd, first proposed the idea of Father’s Day back in 1909. She wanted a special day to honour her father, William Smart, a Civil War veteran who was widowed when his wife died in childbirth with their sixth child.
Mr Smart had no option but to raise the newborn and their other five children by himself on a rural farm. Afterwards, as an adult, Mrs Dodd realized the strength and selflessness her father had shown in raising his children as a single parent.
The first Father’s Day was observed on June 19, 1910, in Spokane, Washington. At about the same time, in various towns and cities across the US, others were beginning to celebrate Father’s Day, too.
In 1924, American President Calvin Coolidge supported the idea of a national Father’s Day. Finally, in 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation declaring the third Sunday of June every year as Father’s Day. The day is not only to honour fathers, but all men who act as a father figure — uncles, grandfathers, etc.
While in America and the rest of the world, Father’s Day may be a way to bestow tributes on fathers, in the less-developed and developing countries in Asia, it has been reduced to a commercial venture, losing its sanctity.
According to the American thinker, Enid Bagnold, “A father is always making his baby into a little woman. And when she is a woman, he turns her back on him.”
Queen Victoria of England was no less when it came to describing the virtues of a father. “None of you can ever be proud enough of being the child of such a father who has not his equal in this world — so great, so good, so faultless. Try, all of you, to follow in his footsteps and don’t be discouraged, for to be really in everything like him none of you, I am sure, will ever be. Try, therefore, to be like him in some points, and you will have acquired a great deal,” wrote the Queen.
In a male-dominated society such as Pakistan, Father’s Day does not mean much. As bread-earners, fathers are generally out of the house and kids are more attached to their mothers. Unlike the West where fathers openly hug and show affection to their daughters, the Pakistani father hands over his charge to the mother.
Frankly speaking, Father’s Day needs real celebration in Pakistan where his role is performed generally via the mother. It would be a great idea if all fathers on this day are reminded that they have a role other than just being the breadwinner and the traditional head of the family.
“Fathers and teachers are the main characters who perform a major role in people’s lives,” says Dr Abdul Rehman Khalid, a senior professor at Punjab University. “A father is an important agent in developing the personality and attitude of the child and the teacher guides him/her towards the right direction.”
In neighbouring India, things are a bit different. “In India, mothers are taken more of a symbol of love and affection, but fathers do get their due,” says Norris Pritam, a New Delhi-based Indian sports journalist. “Actually, being in sports, I was more close to my father who was an early sporting icon for me. His positive response made my father a special person in my life,” adds Norris. “I see this missing in several societies and find it very disturbing. Maybe this is the reason for the breaking up of so many families in recent times.”
Mr Pritam’s wife, Nivedita, says, “My mother was very young when she married my father, therefore when we came on the scene the distinction was very clear. While my mother was a friend to my sister and me, our father acted as the guardian and protector, and it remained the same till he died a few years ago.”
So before you go off and party this Father’s Day, spare a minute for the kid who does not have a father. He will be a happier person. What would be a better Father’s Day celebration? It is for nothing that an old English proverb explains the meaning of father in the simplest of the expression: “One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters!”
