Do you know your Father's Day trivia? Or when is Father's Day? The first official celebration of dads was in 1910, and dad-boosters have been collecting Father's Day trivia since then.
Father's Day trivia includes the number of dads in the U.S. (64 million) and the number of preschoolers whose father cares for them while mom works (2.9 million).
Read on for more Father's Day trivia and ideas for popular Father's Day gifts.
Father's Day Origins
Sonora Dodd of Spokane, Wash., conceived of a Father's Day holiday in 1909 while listening to a Mother's Day sermon. She wanted to honor her father, William Smart, a Civil War veteran who raised his six children on a farm after being widowed.
The Spokane mayor designated June 19, 1910, as Father's Day because Smart was born in June.
In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson proclaimed the third Sunday in June as Father's Day. In 1972, President Richard Nixon signed a law making the holiday permanent.
How Many Dads Are There?
There are 64.3 million dads across the U.S. Of those, 25.8 million are in married-couple families with children younger than 18. (22 percent of those are raising three or more kids!)
Another 1.8 million dads are single fathers, making up 16 percent of the single parents in the U.S. About 51 percent are divorced, 25 percent never married, 19 percent are separated and 5 percent are widowed.
Of the 30.2 million dads living with minor children, 85 percent lived only with their biological children. 11 percent lived with stepchildren, 4 percent with adopted kids and 1 percent with foster children.
Fathers and Children
Of the children younger than 6 in the U.S., 53 percent eat breakfast and 71 percent eat dinner with their father every day. That compares to 58 percent and 80 percent with mom.
Another 36 percent had 15 or more outings with their father in the month before a 2006 survey. On average, fathers read six times a week to their children aged 3 to 5. And 66 percent of those under-6 kids received praise from dad three or more times a day.
The Census Bureau counted 140,000 stay-at-home dads in 2008, caring for 234,000 children. Of these dads, 54 percent had two or more children and 52 percent enjoyed a family income of $50,000 or more annually.
Gifts for Dad
If you're looking for a present for the father in your life, you can shop at one of:
- The 9,003 men's clothing stores,
- The 14,012 hardware stores or 6,749 home centers or
- The 23,270 sporting goods stores around the country.
You might also end up as one of the 78 million Americans who participate in a barbeque annually.
Child-Support Payments
31 percent of custodial fathers (678,000) were due child support. In 2005, they received $2.4 billion out of $3.3 billion due. That compares with $22.4 billion that custodial moms received out of $34.7 billion due.
Looking at non-cash support, 72 percent of custodial fathers received gifts or expense reimbursement. Only 59 percent of custodial moms got such non-cash child support.
Source: the Census Bureau
