Skip to content
Call Us Today! 212-533-4646 | MON-FRI 12PM - 4PM (EST)
DONATE
SUBSCRIBE
Search for:
About Us
UNWLA 100
Publications
FAQ
Annual Report 2023
Annual Report 2022
Annual Report 2021
Initiatives
Advocate
Educate
Cultivate
Care
News
Newsletters
Sign Up For Our Newsletter
Join UNWLA
Become a Member
Volunteer With Us
Donate to UNWLA
Members Portal
Calendar
Shop to Support Ukraine
Search for:
Print
Print Page
Download
Download Page
Download Right Page
Open
1
2-3
4-5
6-7
8-9
10-11
12-13
14-15
16-17
18-19
20-21
22-23
24-25
26-27
28-29
30-31
32-33
34-35
36-37
38-39
40
HEY ТАТО! By BORYS PROKOPOVYCH As another Father’s Day arrives, I am reminded that I have been a father for twenty years without ever really thinking about “my” day. Like every other father, between deadlines at work and projects at home, my days are filled with so many things to do that there is little room for contemplation. I certainly don’t think being a Ukrainian father is any different from being any other kind of father, except maybe for those extra trips to Ukie school. But I do think being a father today carries a lot more stress, anxiety and responsibility than in any other age. Faced with potential lay-offs, downsizing, business mergers, rising costs of education, global instability and threats of environmental doom, today’s fathers worry twice as much. If that isn’t enough, there’s the Internet with its exposure of everything once kept secret from children, at least for a while. Is it any wonder that most fathers wear a perpetual frown? Not so much for themselves, but out of concern for their children. So, how did we get our own day? Did we feel left out on Mother’s Day? Not really. In May of 1905, Anna M. Jarvis vowed to fulfill her mother’s wish for a special holiday to honor mothers. In 1908, the first official Mother's Day celebrations were held in West Virginia and in 1914, Woodrow Wilson declared Mother's Day a national holiday. It is interesting to note that the holiday took on a commercial tone, and in 1923, Anna filed a lawsuit to stop a Mother's Day festival. She was furious to find the white carnations she had designated as the official Mother's Day flower being sold. "I wanted it to be a day of sentiment, not profit," she protested. She admitted to being sorry she had ever started the holiday, and spent all of her inheritance tiying to return the holiday to its loving intentions. Contrary to a popular misconception, Father’s Day, was not started in order to help greeting card manufacturers sell more cards. In fact when a “father’s day” was first proposed there were no Father’s Day cards! Mrs. John B. Dodd, of Washington, first proposed the idea of a “father’s day” in 1909. She wanted a special day to honor her father, William Smart, a Civil War veteran who was widowed when his wife died in childbirth with their sixth child. It was only after Mrs. Dodd became an adult that she realized the strength and selflessness her father had shown in raising his six children as a single parent. The first Father’s Day was observed on June 19, 1910 in Spokane Washington. At about the same time in various towns and cities across America, other people were beginning to celebrate a “father’s day.” But it took 57 years before President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation declaring the 3rd Sunday of June as Father’s Day in 1966. By contrast it only took 9 years from proposal to fact for Mother’s Day. Guess they really had to think about giving us a day. While there are numerous sources describing a mother’s role, very little is said about what a father does. Even with our “own” day, society seems to say that fathering is merely providing a paycheck. By definition, the verb “to father” simply means to beget or to place responsibility for the origin or cause of. The noun “father”, is a man who has begotten a child. The overall theme for the word father is to procreate. The definitions for “mother”, however, relate more towards nurturing and caring. This implies that the mother’s responsibilities are to give birth and to take care of and the father’s responsibilities are simply to sire. Judging by today’s statistics of absentee fathers, far too many “sires” apparently agree. It would seem then that a father’s role is to have a job, preferably a good, high-salaiy job. From our earliest days, society tells us that a man's role is to get to the top. The assumption is that we men should be aggressively seeking that better job even if it means moving to strange new places. A second assupmtion is that we should be married with children to move up the corporate ladder since single men can't be trusted with high positions. What kind of parents we are doesn't seem to matter; just the appearance of being a good family man and having children to introduce is sufficient for those corporate picnics. This results in a lot of executives with plenty of money and no one to love. In most other countries, family comes first. We need to change the social assumption in this country that places success over family and being on top of the ladder over being a father. 18 НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЧЕРВЕНЬ 1999 Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
Page load link
Go to Top
1 
2-3 
4-5 
6-7 
8-9 
10-11 
12-13 
14-15 
16-17 
18-19 
20-21 
22-23 
24-25 
26-27 
28-29 
30-31 
32-33 
34-35 
36-37 
38-39 
40 
