June 12, 2013 THE VILLADOM TIMES II • Page 11 Sonora Dodd of Washington developed the concept for a day celebrating fatherhood while listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909. Dodd realized there should be a similar day set aside to honor fathers, most especially her own father, William Smart. A Civil War veteran and widower, Smart raised his six children on his own. When Dodd became an adult, she realized how selflessly her father had acted and how difficult it must have been to raise such a large family. In his honor, she held a father’s day in Spokane, Washington on Celebration of fatherhood continues after 100 years June 10 – her father’s birthday. One of the more noteworthy societal shifts in the second half of the 20th century was the growing number of single-parent families. Whereas single-parent homes were an anomaly during the first half of the 1900s, by the turn of the century the percentage of single-parent homes had grown substantially. One of the common misconceptions about single-parent homes is that they all are headed by women. According to a 2009 report from the U.S. Census Bureau, an overwhelming majority of the 13.7 million single parents across the country are women. However, 16 percent of single parents are fathers, a figure that equates to roughly 2.2 million men serving as custodial parents across the country. For those households, Father’s Day is a day that bears extraordinary significance. The idea of a Father’s Day holiday was supported by President Calvin Coolidge in 1924, but it wasn’t until 1966, when President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation declaring the third Sunday of June as Father’s Day, and subsequently when President Richard Nixon signed the law in 1972, that the holiday became permanent. Since then, Father’s Day has been celebrated annually worldwide, although on varying dates. A few examples follow: * March 19: Bolivia, Honduras, Spain, Italy, Portugal * May 5: Portugal * May 8: South Korea * First Sunday in June: Lithuania * June 5: Denmark * Second Sunday in June: Austria, Belgium * June 17: El Salvador * June 21: Guatemala * Last Sunday in June: Haiti