>Father’s Day celebrates its 100th anniversary today
Council members in Spokane, Wash., created the first Father’s Day in 1910 to honor William Smart, a widowed Civil War veteran who raised six children on a farm. Spokane’s celebration was held June 19, 1910.
In 1924 President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. President Nixon, in 1972, established a permanent national observance of Father’s Day to be held on the third Sunday of June. So Father’s Day was born as a token of love and gratitude that a daughter cherishes for her beloved father. Roses are the Father’s Day flowers: red to be worn for a living father and white if the father has died.(https://www.theholidayspot.com/fathersday/history.htm)
Former President Lyndon Johnson issued a proclamation in 1966 designating the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Former President Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972.
Fast facts about fathers in the U.S.:
There are an estimated 67.8 million fathers across the nation, census data shows.
There are an estimated 67.8 million fathers across the nation, census data shows.
About 25.8 million fathers were part of married-couple families with children younger than 18, census data from 2009 shows.
Of the 1.7 million single fathers in 2009, 47 percent were divorced, 29 percent never married, 18 percent separated and 5 percent were widowed, data shows.
There were about 158,000 stay-at-home dads in 2009, census data shows. These fathers, married with children younger than 15, have remained out of the work force for at least one year primarily so they can care for the children while their wives work outside the home. The father cared for about 290,000 children.
Custodial fathers received $2.8 billion in child support payments in 2007 of the $4.3 billion they were due. Custodial mothers, by contrast, received $18.6 billion of the $29.8 billion that was due, a report from the census bureau shows.
Seventy-one percent of children younger than 6 years old ate dinner with their father every day in 2006, data shows. About 53 percent ate breakfast together.
Children ages 3 to 5 were read to an average of six times in a week, as of 2006, census data states.
(https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/f2be9dab-41b6-517f-88d6-a81f9950d1d2.html)
