Is Father’s Day a Second Rate Holiday?

Dear Suze, The grown kids and I ask my husband every year what he wants for Father’s Day, same as they ask me for Mother’s Day. For both, we all get together for a nice meal. Father’s Day gifts are sports related; Mother’s Day are not. I hear and read a lot of bellyaching about Father’s Day isn’t as celebrated. Why?

Dear Mother, Mother’s Day began in the US in 1908 and is now universally celebrated by more than 40 countries. Although Father’s Day was proposed in 1908 too as a day to honor miner’s who died in an accident in WA, it didn’t become a U.S. national holiday until two years later. But… celebrating Father’s Day has been traced as far back as 1508 in religion circles, and is an international holiday celebrated in over, a whopping, 112 countries! Nothing second-rate about it. Remind the bellyachers of these facts. -SQ