The driving force behind Mother’s Day was Anna Jarvis, who organized observances in Grafton, West Virginia, and Philadelphia on May 10, 1908. As the annual celebration became popular around the country, she asked members of Congress to set aside a day to honor mothers. She finally succeeded in 1914, when Congress designated the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.
Here are some statistics about U.S. mothers from the U.S. Census Bureau:
- There were an estimated 82.8 million mothers in the United States in 2004.
- There were 5.6 million stay-at-home moms in 2006.
- Among mothers with infants in 2004, 55 percent were in the labor force, down from a record high of 59 percent in 1998.
- There were 751,322 child care centers across the country in 2005. These include more than 73,000 centers employing more than 800,000 workers and another 678,000 self-employed people or other businesses without paid employees. Many mothers turn to these centers to help juggle motherhood and careers.
- Of women who gave birth for the first time between 2001 and 2003, 67 percent worked during their pregnancy. This compares with 44 percent who gave birth for the first time between 1961 and 1965.
- Eighty percent of first-time mothers worked one month or less before giving birth.
- Fifty-five percent of first-time mothers in the early part of this decade were working by the sixth month after they gave birth. In the early 1960s, the corresponding percentage was 14 percent.
- Of mothers who went back to work within a year of their child’s birth, 83 percent returned to the same employer. Seven in 10 of these women returned to jobs at the same pay, skill level, and hours worked per week.
Father’s Day: June 15, 2008
The idea of Father’s Day was conceived by Sonora Dodd of Spokane, Washington, while she listened to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909. Dodd wanted a special day to honor her father, William Smart, a widowed Civil War veteran who was left to raise his six children on a farm. A day in June was chosen for the first Father’s Day celebration — June 19, 1910, proclaimed by Spokane’s mayor because it was the month of Smart’s birth. The first presidential proclamation honoring fathers was issued in 1966 when President Lyndon Johnson designated the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. Father’s Day has been celebrated annually since 1972 when President Richard Nixon signed the public law that made it permanent.
Here are some statistics about U.S. fathers from the U.S. Census Bureau:
- There are an estimated 64.3 million fathers across the nation.
- There were an estimated 159,000 stay-at-home dads in 2006. These married fathers with children younger than 15 remained out of the labor force for at least one year primarily so they could care for the family while their wives worked outside the home. They cared for 283,000 children. Among these stay-at-home dads, 60 percent had two or more children, and 40 percent had an annual family income of $50,000 or more.
- Among the nation’s 11.3 million preschoolers whose mothers are employed, 25 percent are regularly cared for by their father during their mother’s working hours. This amounted to 2.9 million children.