What Modern America Expects of Dads
June 17, 2013
George W. Bush, left, is shown with his father, George H.W. Bush in this photo from 1968.
Welcome to This Is America from VOA Learning English. I'm Kelly Jean Kelly.
And I'm Bob Doughty. This week on our program, we look at modern changes in the American father.
Moms Are Great. But What About Dads?
Father's Day was observed this year on Sunday, June 16. This special day to honor and celebrate fathers has over a century of history behind it. In 1909 there was a woman named Sonora Dodd. She was in church at a service for Mother's Day, which is celebrated in May.
Her mother had died in childbirth, leaving her father to raise her and her five brothers and sisters. She thought about how difficult it had been for her father to raise six children all by himself. She decided that since there was a day honoring mothers, there should also be one recognizing fathers.
Sonora Dodd campaigned for the idea in her home state of Washington, in the Pacific Northwest. The first Father's Day was celebrated in June of 1910 in the city of Spokane. June was the month her father was born.
At first Sonora Dodd had found little support. But in the years that followed, the idea of Father's Day spread across the country. It gained the approval of President Woodrow Wilson in 1916. Yet he never signed an official proclamation, as he did two years earlier for the first Mother's Day.
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