Her First Love, His First Hero
Dr. Pfister with his two sons
They say it takes a village to raise a child. And, after three-and-a-half decades working with young people, I’ve found the addition of a dad and mom is also quite helpful.
The celebration of fathers and mothers has been quite different over the years. President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed May 9, 1914, the official national Mother’s Day celebration. It wasn’t until 1972 that President Nixon finally recognized the third Sunday in June as the official celebration of Father’s Day. I feel part of the reason for the 58-year span was due to the number of World Wars we were involved with and, in the early wars, it was primarily the fathers who were sent. The origin of Father’s Day has an interesting history with two possible starts… from opposite sides of the country.
The first story comes from the state of Washington in 1909. Sonora Smart Dodd wanted to honor her Civil War hero father, who raised her and her five brothers and sisters… after her mom died giving birth to the sixth child. Being of strong will, like her father, she petitioned the state governor. Her persistence paid off, as the governor declared the third Sunday in June 1910 as the first official celebration of “Father’s Day”!
The second possible origin story comes from Fairmont, West Virginia, at the suggestion of a daughter, Grace Golden Clayton. At that time, a mine explosion killed 361 men in that area. Consequently, hundreds of children were left fatherless. Grace petitioned and pushed the local Methodist church conference and, on July 5, 1908 (a year earlier than Washington’s celebration), West Virginia recognized its fathers.
Interesting that both origin stories have a common thread. Both were initiated and fueled by a daughter for recognition of her father. This correlates with recent findings on sibling and parental research.
The orthodontic research from the Human Growth Center of the University of Michigan from early on in this millennium, showed interesting repeatable trends in genetic transferal from parents to children. In their research, they found that nearly 65% of the daughters had mental, emotional, and facial characteristics that genetically paralleled their fathers. Conversely, nearly 65% of the sons carried and exhibited the genetic traits of their mothers. However, the reliability factor was only statistically significant for the first two children! The third child was a hybrid of both parents with significantly variable genetic codes. In my career, I have seen this research play itself out on a daily basis. And most grandmothers concur with me in my thinking that daughters take after their fathers over 70%.
This research gives credibility to the importance of a father’s involvement in his daughter’s upbringing. Pediatric research shows a father is a crucial ingredient in the development of a young woman’s self-esteem. Direct involvement and encouragement by her father will help diminish a young girl’s insecurity and increase her confidence in her own abilities. Be it son or daughter, the research on fathering is pretty strong - fathers have a crucial role to play in the cognitive, social, and emotional development of their children.
With that being said, I was raised in a single parent environment with my younger sister and much younger brother, after my dad died when I was an early teen. My mom did a super job playing both parents. We turned out ok, but it would have been easier for my younger siblings had a dad been there to share the parental load. When I became a father, I tried to be as involved as possible by being engaged in my boys’ activities, coaching their sports, lending a listening ear, and continually trying to teach right from wrong. We may not always be right there at our child’s side, day-in and day-out, but when we are there, dads must make every minute count in the parenting equation.
They say a father is a daughter’s first love and a son’s first hero. This may be true for some, but most of us dads probably fall somewhere in between! We keep a roof over our family’s head, food on the table, and serve as driver to countless sports / life events with the synergistic help of mom.
So, this Sunday, I’d like all of us to acknowledge and thank the fathers in our lives, who in some way - large or small - have helped us to be who we are today. I’d like to leave you with this thought from an unknown writer:
A dad is someone who holds you when you cry,
Scolds you when you break the rules,
Shines with pride when you succeed,
And has faith in you even when you fail.
Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there.
- Dr. P