Last month I almost missed National Daughters’ Day. Facebook has a way of reminding me of my shortcomings. I sometimes forget to check it; whenever I finally pause for a view, I realize how much I’ve missed.
By Nancy Jo Maples
In my defense, I didn’t even know there was such a thing as National Daughters’ Day. I genuinely enjoyed seeing sweet pictures of my friends’ girls and grand-girls. As I continued to scroll the newsfeed, my self-inflicted Facebook shame made me scramble to find a pic to keep up with the big event. After all, I couldn’t let down our daughter.
Sure, I tell her on the phone and in person every time I see her how proud Mark and I are of her and how richly blessed we feel that God gave us her and her two brothers. Yet, it appears nowadays telling such thoughts in person just isn’t enough. Getting onboard the Facebook bandwagon to create a post – especially one with a photograph – has consumed Americans. We all choose when to jump on the bandwagon and when to let it ride by.
Curiosity caused me to conduct a quick Google search about this day that was new to me. Google led me to several web sites. Apparently, the celebration began in India as a way to eliminate the stigma associated with having a daughter as some countries value male children more than female children. Fortunately, my research revealed Daughters’ Day can be celebrated either Sept. 25 or the last Sunday in September. Therefore, I was able to join the fun without being too late in the game.
I continued reading and discovered this week also has a National Sons’ Day. One site said Sons’ Day was March 4. Another said Sept. 28. As March 4 is either long gone or too far away, I decided to go with the web site that best fit my predicament. Any parent knows you can’t do for one child what you don’t do for another child. I certainly couldn’t miss posting a picture of my sons since I had posted one of their sister. Again, I scrambled. Finally, I found a photo of the boys. How stressful this was!
Curiosity kept me reading. Did you know there is a National Day for everything and every day has a National Thing? There’s National Wife Appreciation Day, which my husband missed on Sept. 20; but hey, he never misses our anniversary, so doesn’t that count for something? Husbands’ Day is in April. Should I mark my calendar? There’s also Couples Day in August, and I Love You Day is Oct. 14. But don’t we celebrate those on Feb. 14? How can I possibly keep up with all these dates? To accidentally overlook one and risk hurting someone’s feelings would be amiss.
October for our family is filled with birthdays. There are also Columbus Day and of course Halloween. But hold on – there’s more to celebrate as we embrace the month. October has 190 holidays. Yep, 31 days and 190 holidays. The web site, www.nationaltoday.com, identifies not only the 190 October celebratory days, but also celebratory weeks. For example, last week was Active Aging Week.
The first day of October is our younger son’s birthday; that’s what we celebrated. That one day alone was chockfull of things to celebrate including International Coffee Day, International Day of Older Persons, Mid-Autumn Festival Day, National Black Dog Day, National Fire Pup Day, National Hair Day, National Homemade Cookies Day and World Vegetarian Day. There were reasons to celebrate Oct. 1 and nine reasons if you had a birthday in your family.
If you missed Daughters’ Day or Sons’ Day, don’t let it get you down. Look it up. There’s more than enough to celebrate in October.
Award-winning journalist Nancy Jo Maples has been writing about Mississippi people and places for more than 30 years. A native of Union, she lives in Lucedale and writes for various media. Contact her at nancyjomaples@aol.com.
