Top 10 Facts About Fathers

Did you know Father's Day is a law—well, legal anyway. President Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972, after President Lyndon Johnson, in 1966, designated the third Sunday in June.

• 70.1 million fathers (estimate) in the U.S. 
• 25.3 million fathers were a married-couple with children younger than age 18, in 2010.
• 15 percent of single parents are fathers, totaling 1.8 million, in 2010.
• Stay-at-home dads estimated at 154,000 in 2007. They cared for the kids at least one year, while wives worked outside the home.
• Fathers got $2.8 billion in child support in 2007 (They were due $4.3 billion.) Mothers got five times that amount.
• Dads eat breakfast with 53 percent of the children aged six and younger.  (Dinner: 71 percent ate with Dad.)
• Dads had 15-plus outings in the past month with 36 percent of the children aged six.
• Dads read six times a week to the children ages three to five, as of 2006.
• Dads praised three times a day or more six percent of children ages six years old. 
• Men's clothing stores totaled 8,111 in the U.S., 16,010 hardware stores and 7,009 home centers in 2008, so there should be plenty of places to buy Dad a tie or set of screwdrivers for Father's Day this year on Sun., June 19

Father's Day started as an idea of Sonora Dodd in 1909. She and five siblings were raised by their father alone. When she heard a Mother's Day sermon she decided fathers needed a special day, too. A day in June was chosen because it was the birth month of her father—a Civil War veteran.