Father’s Day 2025: History, significance and who you can celebrate the day with 

Father’s Day is gradually carving out a space of its own in the calendar of celebrations. It might not come wrapped in as many florals or breakfast-in-bed photos as Mother’s Day just yet, but there's a quiet buzz that gets louder each year. More people are taking a moment to appreciate the fathers and father figures whose love may not always be loud, but is deeply felt. It’s a day that’s beginning to feel properly seen.

Father’s Day history and significance:

The story of Father’s Day traces back to the early 1900s in the United States. A woman named Sonora Smart Dodd felt her father, who had raised six children on his own after her mother passed away, deserved the same kind of recognition that mothers were starting to receive. She proposed the idea of a day to honour fathers, and in 1910, the first Father’s Day was celebrated in Spokane, Washington.

What began as a daughter’s tribute, gradually picked up support across states and countries. While it took decades to become an officially recognised occasion, the idea resonated, men who held families together, often quietly, now had a day dedicated to them.

Also read | Father’s Day special: Embarking on your paternal journey? Here’s a financial planning checklist

The celebration today:

Unlike Mother’s Day, which often carries a certain cultural script, Father’s Day is still evolving. It’s more flexible, more personal. For some, it’s a phone call; for others, a barbecue, a shared joke, or just a quiet hour on the sofa. There’s no one way to do it, but the common thread is recognition.

It’s about saying: we see the things you did without being asked, the love tucked inside advice, the sacrifices that looked ordinary but weren’t. And finally giving them the credit they so rarely seek, but always deserve. Today, it’s not just for dads by birth, but for anyone who’s filled those shoes with care, stepfathers, grandads, adoptive dads, big brothers, even neighbours or mentors.

More than biology:

Not every dad is a father by blood. Some step in, some step up, and some never step out; mentors, grandfathers, uncles, big brothers. Father’s Day isn’t boxed into a DNA kit. It’s a tribute to those who stood steady when life wobbled. Those who stitched broken toys, sat through school plays with teary eyes, or taught you how to fix a tap at 11pm when the house was leaking and so were you.