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The earliest record of Father's Day
was found in the ruins of Babylon. Some four thousand years ago, a
young boy named Elmesu carved a Father's Day message on clay. He
wished his Babylonian dad a long life and health.
The North American version of Father’s
Day was conceived by Sonora Dodd while listening to a Mother’s Day
sermon in 1909. She wanted to honour her father, a widower who had
to raise six children on his own.
“Does my butt look too thin in these
jeans?” Some of us wouldn’t mind being pipefish, since the male
takes the eggs during mating and carries them to term. But if you’re
not big, fat and sexy enough, he’ll destroy the embryos and make
room for offspring from a.
more attractive female.
An Athens legislator named Solon
passed a law in the 6th century that let fathers sell their
fornicating daughters into slavery.
Father’s Day is celebrated the world
over- but not on the same day. In Norway, it’s the second Sunday in
November. In Germany, it’s forty days after Easter. In Brazil, it’s
the second Sunday in August. In Thailand, it’s on December 5, the
birthday of King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
In Spain and other devout Roman
Catholic cultures, Father’s Day is ´El día del padre.´It is
celebrated on March 19, because that is St. Joseph’s Day. St. Joseph
is the patron saint of carpenters, an example of fatherhood as a
good husband to the Virgin Mary, and a loving foster father to
Jesus.
Linguists Pierre Bancel and Alain
Matthey de L'Etang found that 700 out of 1000 languages use some
form of Papa as the word for “father.” This means two things: first,
“Papa” is one of the earliest spoken words in history, and second,
we likely have a common language as our original language.
Papa’s the word in Russian, French,
Hindi, Hungarian, Dutch, and Cree. In East African, Bangla,
Kiswahili, Kenyan, Ladin, and Turkish, it’s “Baba.” In Icelandic,
it’s Pabbi. In Indonesian, it’s Bapa. Looks like babies will be
understood internationally when crying for Daddy!
Use your imagination when gifting:
according to the US Census Bureau, ties are the number one Father’s
Day gift. How often does the average dad wear a tie? How short on
ties are dads who wear them daily? How about fishing lures, barbecue
sauce, a good book, a gift certificate for dinner out, a tank of
gas, tickets to a baseball game for daddy and daughter…anything but
ties or Old Spice, please.
“Swedish fathers are Europe’s most
involved dads, partly because they have more paternal leave than in
any other country." Adrienne Burgess
The Fatherhood Institute has named the
Aka Pygmies the “Best Dads in the World.” One of the many tragic
elements to the current pillaging and warfare in the Congo is the
destruction of the Pygmies’ natural habitat, and the hunting of the
Pygmies themselves for talismanic purposes, and horrifically, for
food. The Congo rainforest is responsible for much of the world’s
oxygen, but its ancient dwellers are considered not-quite-human by
some whites and some other black cultural groups as well. But the
whole world has much to learn from the Pygmies, from their near-zero
carbon footprint, extensive knowledge of food and medicine, and the
fact that they are the world’s most involved fathers! The dads spend
some 47% of their time in touching distance to their children,
according to writer Dan Roberts and anthropologist Barry Hewlett.
These hands-on dads feed, clean, change diapers, and carry their
babies. It doesn’t stop there: they are egalitarians close to their
wives, sharing hunting and food preparation tasks.
So that’s what they’re for…these
fantastic fathers have led scientists inadvertently closer to
answering the question of what are men’s nipples for. Seems they’re
for the same thing ladies’ nipples are for: suckling babies. When
mom is not nearby, or to comfort baby without feeding him, men’s
nipples apparently work wonders.
We often equate barbaric models of
masculinity with “Neanderthal” history. And sometimes, men justify
their bad behaviour on “nature.” But we might have it wrong. “It is
possible that, in prehistoric societies, this was a normal way of
fathering. We should not assume from 10,000 years of history that
our prevailing model is the right one,” says Sebastian Kraemer,
child psychiatrist at London’s Whittington Hospital.
Unfortunately, not all cultures foster
fatherly closeness. According to FatherWorld, studies of 156
cultures found that only 20 per cent promoted men’s close
relationships with infants, and only 5 per cent with young children.
Becoming a dad is pretty much the only
chance a man has of leaving a Los Angeles Latino gang without being
inside a body bag.
The vast majority of animals never
even see their fathers. Many species face life completely alone,
without even seeing their mother.
The father cockroach eats bird poop
for its nitrogen content, which it takes back to feed his babies.
Marmoset monkeys are cared for
exclusively by their dads. The father takes his baby to mother only
for feeding. Once baby is old enough to eat solid food, dad takes
over completely.
The catfish keeps the baby eggs safe
in his mouth until they hatch, meaning he might not eat for weeks at
a time!
The Kalahari Desert’s father sand
grouse might fly fifty miles a day just to soak himself in water for
his babies to drink from his feathers.
The Koran awards all parental rights
to the father, so men automatically take custodial rights throughout
the Islamic world. According to journalist Suanne Kelman, this
accounts for high incidents of abduction to a country of origin if
an American court has favoured the mother. But many scholars and
spiritual leaders disagree with taking things out of context, for
the Prophet himself, when asked who a Muslim should love most, said,
“Your mother, your mother, your mother and then your father.”
In the United Arab Emirates, 63 year
old Daad Mohammed Murad Abdul Rahman has over 75 children. He wants
to sire 100. His wives and children live in 15 houses, paid for with
his military pension and government assistance.
That’s nothing- Warren Jeffs, a leader
of a fundamentalist Mormon sect, has 250 kids.
But that’s nothing to write home
about, either. New genetic research confirms folk suspicions that
the busiest man ever was probably Genghis Khan, the brutal Mongol
warrior. There are two reasons his bloodline is so vast- one, he
killed off much of the Asian empire, obliterating many other lines
of descent. More importantly, he fathered several thousand children.
Today alone there are 16 million of his descendants living. How did
he do it? "The greatest joy a man can know is to conquer his enemies
and drive them before him. To ride their horses and take away their
possessions. To see the faces of those who were dear to them bedewed
with tears, and to clasp their wives and daughters in his arms."
Lets just say it is a far more honourable father who welcomes one
child out of love. |
