Father as provider

Jun 16, 2025 Editorial

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Kaieteur News – Yesterday, Guyanese joined the rest of the world in celebrating fatherhood and honouring all fathers. It was an occasion to recognise the contributions of fathers in making the lives of their children and society better.

Father’s Day celebrations began in Europe during the Middle Ages, where it was and is still being celebrated in many countries on March 19 to commemorate the feast day of St. Joseph. The Catholic Church actively supported the celebration of fatherhood on St. Joseph’s Day. The celebration was subsequently brought by the Spanish and Portuguese to Latin America, where it is still being celebrated on March 19 every year, though many countries in Europe and the Americas, including Canada and Britain, have adopted the U.S. date, which is the third Sunday of June.

Different countries have a range of ways to celebrate Father’s Day. In the United States, several events during the early 20th century may have inspired the idea of Father’s Day. One of these was the successful celebration of Mother’s Day in the first decade of the 20th century. Another was a memorial service held in 1908 for 362 men, many were fathers, who were killed in a mining accident in West Virginia in December 1907. It was a one-time commemoration.

However, Sonora Smart Dodd, a woman from Spokane, Washington, was the influential figure to initiate the idea of Father’s Day in 1908. One of six children, Dodd and her siblings were raised by their widowed father after the death of their mother during childbirth. This was uncommon at that time, as many fathers would have placed their children in the care of others. Sonora felt that her father deserved recognition for what he had done. She was inspired by the work of Julia Ward Howe, a social activist, and Anna Jarvis, whose pioneering efforts to recognise contributions made by women led to Mother’s Day celebrations.

In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation to honour fathers and designate the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. In 1972, Father’s Day was made permanent by President Richard Nixon, who signed it into law.

In Guyana and perhaps elsewhere, Father’s Day is very low-key when compared with Mother’s Day observed last month. Father’s Day should be a day of rejoicing for fathers, but the reality is that it is not for many across the length and breadth of this land blessed with rich gifts. In an era when the hope of prosperity should be an early visitor at the doorstep of Guyanese fathers, that visit has been all but cancelled. What many of our fathers live with is the daily worry, the lengthy tragedy, of how to cope when there is so much meagerness of hope; what to do when there is so much paltriness that they know not what to do. It would be the easiest thing to do in this place of plentiful oil to curse national leaders who have fooled our fathers, then failed them, and do almost nothing for them.

Often, when Father’s Day comes around, the conversation is always about whether the man is providing adequately for his children and not so much about celebrating our fathers. Guyanese would agree that we live in challenging times. High on the list of challenges is the daily struggle to put food on the table, pay the rent or mortgage, pay utility bills, and make it through the days until the next payday.

In today’s society, one of the roles of the father or man is providing for the family. Of course, some families are headed by women who take the responsibility of being the breadwinner; however, in the vast majority of cases where a male is present in the household, it is the man who is expected to be the provider. With that expectation comes great responsibility and, in these harsh times, much stress. With that in mind, men should prepare themselves for that responsibility. One way to do that is to expand your skillset and make yourselves competent in areas of work that could provide income during these financial rainy days. While it may be hard to do, men should work towards diversifying their skills to make sufficient money to provide for themselves and those who depend on them.

Although presently, the roles of family members are again undergoing major revisions as society evolves, Guyanese, for the most part, believe that the man must “be a man” and provide for his family. Only a few years ago, though, a man could adequately provide for an average household working at a single job at which he is skilled. But times have changed. Prices of food items are spiralling out of control. The cost of transportation has gone up. Necessary medications, baby food, toiletries- almost everything we need on a daily basis are now far more expensive. Families are having to make do with less, and men are under increasing pressure to increase their income.

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• Editorial, father, Father’s Day, Fatherhood

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