20th June 2024 · 0 Comments
A call to action as we honor our fathers
Every third Sunday in June, we honor the men in our lives. Whether we affectionately call them Daddy, Dad, Paw Paw, Parrain or more formally father and grandfather and whether biological or not, a stepfather or mentor, we honor those who take on the arduous task of fatherhood.
President Lyndon Johnson declared the third Sunday in June the official day to observe Father’s Day in 1966, but President Richard Nixon made the date permanent in 1972.
But don’t get it twisted. Women, not men, proposed and celebrated the first Father’s Day event and advocated for a federally recognized Father’s Day as far back as the 19th Century.
Grace Golden Clayton, a church organist whose father was a minister, suggested honoring the 250 fathers among the 360 men who died in a coal mine explosion in Monongah, West Virginia, in 1907.
Clayton asked the Reverend Robert T. Webb, the Williams Methodist Episcopal Church South pastor in Fairmont, West Virginia, to hold a commemoration service in their honor. On July 5, 1908, the church held a unique one-time service to honor the 360 men, howstuffworks.com noted. But it was a one-time event.
Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington, is credited with successfully advocating for an annual Father’s Day to honor fathers. Her father, William Jackson Smart, a Civil War veteran, raised six children, five boys, and Sonora after his wife died in childbirth with his fifth son.
Dodd worked with area ministers, merchants, and the YMCA to make Father’s Day a reality. She wanted the holiday to fall on her father’s birthday, June 5, but it was set for every Sunday in June to have a fixed day of the week to celebrate fatherhood.
This year, as we celebrate Father’s Day, we know that fathers are essential to the well-being of children from birth and through adulthood.
The attack on the rights of Black folk by elected officials and people pushing an anti-Black agenda – banning books by Black authors, criminalizing the vote, advocating for total immunity for police, and sponsoring laws that allow people to drive into protest lines, and the soaring costs of living – is a call to action to fathers and father figures (including women who are both father and mother to their children) that everyone is needed for the survival of Black Americans, beginning with the children.
In November 2022, The U.S. Census Bureau released estimates showing 10.9 million one-parent family groups with a child under 18. Data from the annual release of America’s Families and Living Arrangements also show that 80 percent of one-parent families were led by mothers.
In 2022, there were around 7.13 million families in the United States with a male householder and no spouse present, about eight percent of households with minor children.
However, most U.S. children still live with two parents, while 27.1 percent live with one parent, most of who are with their mothers.
Still, the importance of a male figure in the home or mentor can’t be understated. When their father is present and involved in their lives, kids are 40 percent more likely to get good grades and 50 percent more likely to attend college or find steady employment after high school graduation, the South Carolina Center for Fathers and Families reported.
The Institute for Family Studies cited the importance of a two-parent household. Among its findings is that young adults who grew up in a two-parent household have a better chance of success in life. Those who did are far more likely to graduate from college and, on average, earn significantly more money than those raised in single-parent homes.
Fatherless children are much more likely to turn to crime. It is no coincidence that the breakdown of the nuclear family during the Great Society era coincided with an explosion in the national crime rate. The link between fatherless homes and youth engaging in criminal behavior is clear and visible, and studies point to the results of fatherless homes and youth without a male figure for guidance and discipline.
As far back as 1829 and 1830, negative impacts of fatherless homes surfaced when officials at Auburn Penitentiary studied the biographies of inmates and reported to the New York State Legislature that “family disintegration resulting from the death, desertion, or divorce of parents led to undisciplined children who eventually became criminals.”
Fathers’ involvement in their children’s lives can often, but not always, determine whether their children become successful or unsuccessful adults.
In times such as these, strong fathers are desperately needed to stand against the injustices being thrown at Black families, particularly, and American families, generally.
The Louisiana Weekly congratulates all fathers and hopes that every family pays homage to the men in their lives. And we urge all fathers and men taking on the father role to step up and love, defend, and protect their children today as long as life continues.
This article originally published in the June 17, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
