No Fathers' Day Cards for Good Scottish Fathers

McDougall · No Fathers' Day Cards for Good Scottish Fathers

Dateline: Scotland, EU
By: Simon Johnson
From: Telegraph
Via: The Honor Network

No Father’s Day Cards for Good Scottish Fathers
Priority News Exchange Program News Item (PNEP)

Alasdair

This is a non story.

Here's homedad.org.uk's take on the story:

Dave Coull

“It only emerged after a large number of fathers failed to receive their traditional cards and handmade gifts”.

There is NOTHING “traditional” about fathers day cards and gifts. They are entirely a new-fangled commercial proposition, yet another fake excuse for the greetings card industry to make some money.

My mother was married twice. She became a widow when her first husband was killed in an industrial accident in the shipbuilding yard where he worked. My 86 year old big sister was born to that first marriage. A few weeks ago, on the English “Mothers Day”, my big sister and I were talking about such “celebrations”. She said “There was nothing like this when we were young" (and although my own memory doesn't go back as far as my big sister's I can confirm this is true), "it’s an American thing”.

That second bit is true where “Fathers Day” is concerned, but it’s not entirely true where “Mothers Day” is concerned. Yes, it’s partly an American thing, but it’s also partly English. What is certain is that neither Mothers Day nor Fathers Day can be described as “traditional” in a Scottish context.

The English celebration of “Mothers Day” arose out of “Mothering Sunday”. This was the fourth Sunday in Lent, the Sunday on which (male) vicars of the Church of England celebrated their local church’s connection with its “mother church”, that is, the regional church which was the seat of a (male) bishop or archbishop of the Church of England. Note that, in its origins, “Mothering Sunday” was an entirely MALE thing, no women involved, no mothers involved. However, because, in the minds of ordinary people who were not vicars, or bishops, or archbishops, of the Church of England, it seemed that “Mothering Sunday” must have something to do with “mothers”, gradually, over the years, “Mothering Sunday” was transformed into “Mothers Day”, to the great joy of the greetings card industry, florists, etc etc.

Of course, the Church of Scotland doesn’t have bishops, or archbishops, or priests who dress up as mother yet expect you to call them “father”, and it doesn’t pay too much attention to Lent either, so it didn’t have “Mothering Sunday”, and so, as my big sister correctly noted, here in Scotland, we didn’t have anything like “Mothers Day” when we were young.

The USA was influenced by this ENGLISH transformation of “Mothering Sunday” into “Mothers Day”, but of course, while they certainly have plenty of religious involvement in politics, what they don’t have in the USA is a state-sponsored church. Also, they didn’t want to just follow the practice of the Church of England. So the US Congress, in its wisdom, designated a DIFFERENT date as “Mothers Day”. So, instead of being in March like in England, the US Mothers Day is a couple of months later, in May.

But neither the English “Mothering Sunday” in March nor the American “Mothers Day” in May have anything to do with Scotland.

As for the “news item” re Scottish schools dropping the recent innovation of making Fathers Day cards, well, it IS just a recent innovation after all, an innovation which has little or nothing to do with Scotland, and yes, some kids may have bad, or absent, fathers, and should not be forced into such nonsense. Of course it is also true that some kids may have bad, or absent, mothers. So let’s scrap the recent innovation of Mothers Day as well.

Rinty

“It only emerged after a large number of fathers failed to receive their traditional cards and handmade gifts”.

Agree with Daver, I never had a fathers day card made at school by my son. This is usual bollocks from male supremacists.

Dave Coull

Mothering Sunday is always the fourth Sunday of Lent, however, as the dates vary as to when Easter falls, and therefore the dates of Lent vary, the actual Sunday chosen to celebrate it can vary.

In England, "Mothering Sunday" began as a way of recognising hierarchy amongst MEN. It was the day on which a local church was supposed to honour it's "mother church", and, therefore, the bishop whose church that was. At one time, in England, the buck, so far as honouring a "mother church" is concerned, would have stopped at the Vatican, in Rome. But after Henry the Eighth it would have stopped in Canterbury. In Scotland, after the Reformation, local church congregations became more and more conscious of their own independence, and less and less inclined to honour any bishops or their "mother churches".

But although Mothering Sunday in England was originally about hierarchy amongst men, it took on a different significance. Because people were expected to go back to their "mother church" to worship on that particular Sunday, it became a day when people who usually lived apart saw each other. In particular, daughters who were working away from home as domestic servants would see their mothers. Remember that in those days it was quite common for young girls to be working away from home from the age of ten or eleven. So it became a day when young people working as servants or apprentices would see their family.

In the USA, the campaign for a "Mothers Day" was started in the late Nineteenth Century by Julia Ward Howe, who is famous for writing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic".

The following quote is from http://www.morning-glow.com/holidays/father/father.html

"The idea for creating a day for children to honor their fathers began in Spokane, Washington. A woman by the name of Sonora Smart Dodd thought of the idea for Father's Day while listening to a Mother's Day sermon in 1909."

(Note that the "Mothers Day sermon" referred to here would have been on the AMERICAN Mothers Day - still a very recent thing in 1909 - not the English one.)

"Having been raised by her father, William Jackson Smart, after her mother died, Sonora wanted her father to know how special he was to her. It was her father that made all the parental sacrifices and was, in the eyes of his daughter, a courageous, selfless, and loving man. Sonora's father was born in June, so she chose to hold the first Father's Day celebration in Spokane, Washington on the 19th of June, 1910. In 1926, a National Father's Day Committee was formed in New York City. Father's Day was recognized by a Joint Resolution of Congress in 1956. In 1972, President Richard Nixon established a permanent national observance of Father's Day to be held on the third Sunday of June."

So, everybody who wants to celebrate Father's Day, just remember that, while the idea came from a woman who was raised by a single father, the guy who stipulated the actual date of Fathers Day was Richard Nixon. Would you buy a used celebration from this man?

Alasdair

agentmancuso

Traditional? What a lot of tripe. My son has never made me a "Fathers' Day" card. I've never made my father a "Fathers' Day" card. And he never made one for his father either. So stick your sanitised corporate trash up your banjo strumming cryptofascist arse.

Mr Coull said:

Alasdair

Does it matter whether or not it's traditional? Does it have no value? And is it still 'sanitised corporate trash' if their is no corporation involved?

and wtf is a 'male supremacist' in the context of a designated 'fathers day'?

Dave Coull

Alasdair asked "Does it matter whether or not it's traditional?"

It matters that Simon Johnson of the Daily Telegraph PRETENDS that it is traditional, and uses this false pretence to launch an ignorant attack on folk involved in the education of young children here in Scotland. It matters that folk such as those in "The Honor Network", which is clearly USA-based, and which presumably includes McDougall, believe this ignorant stuff. It matters that McDougall has a track record of forwarding ignorant crap on this forum (it's the ONLY kind of thing he ever posts here).

Your other questions quote things said by other people, not me, so I will leave it to them to answer those questions.

agentmancuso