FATHER'S DAY (JULY-19-2011

FATHER’S DAY (JULY-19-2011)

      Now, it's time to honour Fathers and here is a special day to celebrate fatherhood. June 19, 2011 is observed as Father's Day in India, where children express their gratitude to thank their dads for everything they had done, for their love and support, etc. Though the idea of celebrating Father's Day is new in India, the awareness it creates in major cities is worth appreciated. The wave is catching up even in major cities of Kerala. Fathers have helped all of us in different ways. When we needed him, to help us feel secure, to lend a shoulder in times of crisis and many more. Even minor fights vanishes in no time when one thinks of the commendable service he has done for the family. Is it not right to honour such kind of a person, the biggest hero, who deserves the biggest thanks, on this special day.Spend quality time with your father and express your affection by taking them out for dinner, giving a lovable gift or just performing acts of service.  Fathers' Day is celebrated on the 3rd Sunday in June since being made a national holiday in 1966. In Australia and New Zealand, fathers are honored the first Sunday in September. Other countries celebrate fathers throughout the year.

Year	Fathers' Day in U.S.A., Canada and U.K.	Fathers' Day in Australia & New Zealand
2009	June 21	September 6
2010	June 20	September 5
2011	June 19	September 4
2012	June 17	September 2
2013	June 16	September 1
2014	June 15	September 7
2015	June 21	September 6

       Father's Day is a celebration of fathers
inaugurated in the early twentieth century to complement Mother’s Day in celebrating fatherhood and male parenting Father's Day is celebrated on a variety of dates worldwide and typically involves gift-giving, special dinners to fathers, and family-oriented activities. The first observance of Father's Day actually took place in  Fairmont, West Virgina on July 5, 1908. It was organized by Mrs. Grace Golden Clayton, who wanted to celebrate the lives of the 210 fathers who had been lost in the Monongah Mining disaster several months earlier in Monongh, West Virgina on December 6, 1907. It is possible that Clayton was influenced by the first celebration of Mother's Day that same year, just a few miles away. Clayton chose the Sunday nearest to the birthday of her recently deceased father. Unfortunately, the day was overshadowed by other events in the city, West Virginia did not officially register the holiday, and it was not celebrated again. Instead, credit for Father's Day went to Sonora Dodd from Spokane, who invented independently her own celebration of Father's Day just two years later, also influenced by Jarvis' Mother's Day. Clayton's celebration was forgotten until 1972, when one of the attendants to the celebration saw Nixon's proclamation of Father's Day, and worked to recover its legacy. The celebration is now held every year in the Central United Methodist Church, as the Williams Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was torn down in 1922. Fairmont is now promoted as the "Home of the First Father's Day Service".A bill to accord national recognition of the holiday was introduced in Congress in 1913.In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson went to Spokane to speak in a Father's Day celebration and wanted to make it official, but Congress resisted, fearing that it would become commercialized.US President Calvin Coolidge recommended in 1924 that the day be observed by the nation, but stopped short of issuing a national proclamation. Two earlier attempts to formally recognize the holiday had been defeated by Congress. In 1957, Maine Senator  Margaret Chase Smith wrote a proposal accusing Congress of ignoring fathers for 40 years while honoring mothers, thus "[singling] out just one of our two parents". In 1966, President  Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers, designating the third Sunday in June as Father's Day Six years later, the day was made a permanent national holiday when President  Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972. In addition to Father's Day, International Men’s Day is celebrated in many countries on November 19 for men and boys who are fathers.

   Father’s Day is celebrated on 3rd Sunday in June. The idea for creating a day for children to honour their fathers began in Spokane, Washington. A woman by the name of Sonora Smart Dodd thought of the idea for Father's Day while listening to a Mother's Day sermon in 1909. Having been raised by her father, Henry Jackson Smart, after her mother died, Sonora wanted her father to know how special he was to her. It was her father that made all the parental sacrifices and was, in the eyes of his daughter, a courageous, selfless, and loving man. Sonora's father was born in June, so she chose to hold the first Father's Day celebration in Spokane, Washington on the 19th of June 1910.

At about the same time in various towns and cities across American other people were beginning to celebrate a "father's day." In 1924 President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed the third Sunday in June as Father's Day. Roses are the Father's Day flowers: red to be worn for a living father and white if the father has died. Father's Day has become a day to not only honour your father, but all men who act as a father figure. Stepfathers, uncles, grandfathers, and adult male friends are all honoured on Father's Day.

                                               Prof. John Kurakar