Father’s Day notes

From the better late than never category …

The idea of Father’s Day was conceived slightly more than a century ago 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, according to a Father’s Day fact sheet from the U.S. Census Bureau.

A day in June was chosen for the first Father’s Day celebration — 100 years ago, 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.

OTHER CENSUS NOTES ON FATHER’S DAY
• 67.8 million: Estimated number of fathers across the nation.

• 25.8 million: Number of fathers who were part of married-couple families with children younger than 18 in 2009.

• 22% were raising three or more children younger than 18 (among married-couple family households only). 3 percent lived in someone else’s home.

• 1.7 million: Number of single fathers in 2009; 15% of single parents were men. 8% were raising three or more children younger than 18. About 47% were divorced, 29% were never married, 18%  were separated, and 5% were widowed. 44% had an annual family income of $50,000 or more.

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

• 158,000: Estimated number of stay-at-home dads in 2009. 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 290,000 children. Among these stay-at-home dads, 59% had two or more children, and 57% had an annual family income of $50,000 or more.

• 24%: Among the nation’s 11.2 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 2.7 million children.

• $2.8 billion: Amount of child support received by custodial fathers in 2007; they were due $4.3 billion. In contrast, custodial mothers received $18.6 billion of the $29.8 billion in support that was due.

• 45%: Percentage of custodial fathers who received all child support that was due in 2007, not significantly different from the corresponding percentage for custodial mothers.

• 53% and 71%: Percentages of children younger than 6 who ate breakfast and dinner, respectively, with their father every day in 2006. The corresponding percentages who ate with their mother were 58% and 80%. (The percentages of children who ate breakfast with their mother or father, respectively, were not significantly different from each another.)