Father’s Day

The idea of Father’s Day was conceived by Sonora Dodd of Spokane, Wash., while she listened to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909. Dodd wanted a special day to honor her father, William Smart, a widowed Civil War veteran who was left to raise his six children on a farm. A day in June was chosen for the first Father’s Day celebration—June 19, 1910, proclaimed by Spokane’s mayor because it was the month of Smart’s birth. The first presidential proclamation honoring fathers was issued in 1966 when President Lyndon Johnson designated the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. Father’s Day has been celebrated annually since 1972 when President Richard Nixon signed the public law that made it permanent.

64.3 million: Estimated number of fathers across the nation.

A good place to buy dad a tie or a shirt might be one of 8,685 men’s clothing stores around the country (as of 2005).
Other items high on the list of Father’s Day gifts are tools such as hammers, wrenches and screwdrivers. You could buy some of these items for dad at one of the nation’s 14,257 hardware stores or 5,925 home centers (as of 2005).

23,195: Number of sporting goods stores in 2005. These stores are good places to purchase traditional gifts for dad, such as fishing rods and golf clubs.

More than 74 million Americans participated in a barbecue in the last year—it’s probably safe to assume many of these barbecues took place on Father’s Day.

159,000: Estimated number of stay-at-home dads in 2006. These married fathers with children younger than 15 have remained out of the labor force for at least one year primarily so they can care for the family while their wives work outside the home. These fathers cared for 283,000 children. Among these stay-at-home dads, 60 percent had two or more children, and 40 percent had an annual family income of $50,000 or more.

25 percent: Among the nation’s 11.3 million preschoolers whose mothers are employed, the percentage who are regularly cared for by their father during their mother’s working hours. This amounted to 2.9 million children.

26.5 million: Number of fathers who are part of married-couple families with children younger than 18 in 2006.

– 22 percent are raising three or more children younger than 18 (among married-couple family households only).

– 2 percent live in someone else’s home.

2.5 million: Number of single fathers in 2006, up from 400,000 in 1970. Currently, among single parents living with their children, 19 percent are men.

– 8 percent are raising three or more children younger than 18.

– About 42 percent are divorced, 38 percent are never married, 16 percent are separated and 4 percent are widowed. (There is no significant difference between the percentages of single fathers who are divorced or never married.)

– 16 percent live in someone else’s home.

– 27 percent have an annual family income of $50,000 or more.

85 percent: Among the 30.2 million fathers living with children younger than 18, the percentage who lived with their biological children only. In addition, 11 percent lived with stepchildren, 4 percent with adopted children and fewer than 1 percent with foster children.

31 percent: Percentage of custodial fathers who were due child support. They numbered 678,000.

$2.4 billion: Amount of child support received by custodial fathers in 2005; they were due $3.3 billion. In contrast, custodial mothers received $22.4 billion of the $34.7 billion in support that was due.

43 percent: Percentage of custodial fathers who received all child support that was due, not significantly different from the corresponding percentage for custodial mothers. Fathers received an average of $6,210 in child support in 2005, compared with $5,981 for mothers. (These figures are not statistically different from one another.)

36 percent: Percentage of custodial fathers with child support agreements or awards.

72 percent: Percentage of custodial fathers receiving noncash support, such as gifts or coverage of expenses, on behalf of their children. The corresponding proportion for mothers was 59 percent.

30 percent: Percentage of children younger than 6 living with married parents in 2003 who ate breakfast with their fathers every day. The corresponding number for children living with unmarried fathers was 41 percent.

64 percent: Percentage of children younger than 6 living with married parents who ate dinner with their fathers every day. The corresponding number for children living with unmarried fathers was 66 percent.

63 percent: Percentage of children younger than 6 living with married parents who were praised three or more times a day by their fathers. The corresponding number for children living with unmarried fathers was 57 percent.