Global Day of Parents

Celebrated on June 1

In 2012, the U.N. General Assembly declared the first-ever Global Day of Parents and since then June 1 each year has been designated as a day to honor parental units around the world. The day aims to stimulate awareness of the importance of parenthood and its role in providing protection and the tools needed for positive development in children. Being a parent is one of the most universal experiences and it comes with unparalleled responsibilities if we consider that parenthood requires us to nurture our children and equip them with life skills that should enable them to feel part of the society into which they were born. It is also the task of parents to protect their children, a responsibility that often comes with making many sacrifices and allowances. 

From a child’s perspective the relationship that is established and maintained with parents is usually a uniquely important and authentic bond. Ideally this relationship will be based on trust and respect. Studies show that trauma and emotional wounds sustained by a child greatly hinders their development and outlook on life, and are an overall barrier to achieving the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals. It is therefore worth noting that parenting has an impact on economic prosperity and social development. During the 1980s, the United Nations began to pay special attention to issues related to the family, and how the emotional- and mental well-being of a child branches out into other spheres of development throughout life. In a 1993 resolution, May 15 was decided on as the day for the observance of the International Day of the Families, every year.

Of course, Global Parents’ Day can inspire children to recognize their parents in a special way that is consistent with their community and culture. For parents it can serve as an opportunity for ongoing learning about their role in a child’s life, combining a loyalty to tradition with openness for the rapidly changing world in which we live. One of the greatest challenges issued to adults from Maria Montessori was the need for both parents and teachers to engage in self-examination from time to time so as to remain in awe of the innocence and beauty of childhood:

“On every teacher and every parent, I urge not great instruction, but humility and simplicity in dealing with small children. Their lives are fresh, without rivalry or external ambitions, it takes so little to make them happy, to let them work in their own way towards the normal development of the men and women they will be…..

 The great benefit we can bestow on childhood is the exercise of restraint in ourselves.”

from Maria Montessori Speaks to Parents, published by Montessori-Pierson