Father's Day
Father's Day was not celebrated in the US, outside Catholic traditions, until the 20th century. As a civic celebration in the US, it was inaugurated in the early 20th century to complement Mother's Day by celebrating fathers and male parenting.
After Anna Jarvis' successful promotion of Mother's Day in Grafton, West Virginia, the first observance of a "Father's Day" was held on July 5, 1908, in Fairmont, West Virginia, in the Williams Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South, now known as Central United Methodist Church. Grace Golden Clayton was mourning the loss of her father, when in December 1907, the Monongah Mining Disaster in nearby Monongah killed 361 men, 250 of them fathers, leaving around a thousand fatherless children. Clayton suggested that her pastor Robert Thomas Webb honor all those fathers.
Father's quota
The father's quota (Norwegian, "fedrekvote"; Swedish, "pappamånader"), also referred to as the "daddy quota", is a policy implemented in Norway, Sweden and Iceland which reserves a part of parental leave periods for fathers (i.e. paternity leave). If the father does not take leave, the family loses the leave period reserved for them; thus the father's quota is not the leave period itself, but rather the principle that a certain part of the leave period can only be taken by the father. The quota, which originally comprised four weeks, was introduced by the Labour government on April 1, 1993. Norway was the first ever country to introduce a father's quota in 1993, followed by Sweden in 1995. Since 2005, the Norwegian quota has been changed several times, and currently is at 10 weeks each for both mothers and fathers. The last change to this policy was put into place by the Conservative Party on July 1, 2014. In Sweden the quota was increased from 8 to 12 weeks on January 1, 2016. In connection with birth, it is common for the father to get 2 weeks paid time off, but this is not related to parental leave or the father's quota, and is normally covered by the employer.Starting with Sweden in 1974, and then Norway in 1978, equal rights of access to parental leave for both parents was guaranteed by law, although in practice it was more common for the mother to take advantage of the full parental leave. In 1993, parental leave benefits were expanded with four weeks reserved for the father. The catalyst for this change was a wish for more fathers to take part in the parental leave period. Paternity leave was passed by the Parliament on a proposal from Gro Harlem Brundtlands Labor Party against the Conservative Party and the Progress Party votes. The Conservative Party, in partnership with the Christian Democratic Party and the Liberal Party, was involved in extending the paternity leave from four to five weeks.