This is Karen Hunter and welcome to the hub. Today is Father's Day, so I want to start off by wishing every man who is raising a child a very joyous and fulfilled day.

You're appreciated and loved.

And while I hate made up holidays, I'm always ready to shower recognition and

praise on people who are doing the most important job in society, I believe, which is parenting.

I want to give a little history of Father's Day. Society, I believe, which is parenting.

I want to give a little history of Father's Day,

because as I was preparing for this podcast today,

I was like, why do we celebrate Mother's Day,

Father's Day, but since it's Father's Day, I went and started doing some research.

And what was interesting is that I discovered that there's a heavy Christian Catholic

Church connection to Father's Day, which I didn't know. So the celebration of

fatherhood started as a Catholic European tradition that dates back to

1508. It was observed on March 19th as a feast of St. Joseph who was referred to as the

fatherly nourisher of the Lord in Catholicism.

And in southern Europe it was a tradition. This celebration was brought to the new world to the Americas by the Spanish and the Portuguese who were heavily Catholic and the Catholic church actively supported

the custom of a celebration of fatherhood on St. Joseph's Day from either the last

years of the 14th century or from the early 15th century, apparently it was an initiative of the Franciscans.

Father's Day was not celebrated officially in the United States outside of the Catholic tradition until the 20th century.

Then as a civic celebration, not as a religious one,

when it was inaugurated early in the 20th century

as a compliment parallel to Mother's Day,

celebrating fathers, of course.

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