To me, one of the greatest creations of God is the family. I love to see togetherness in families. The cohesion speaks in volumes about the beauty of God’s creations.
I get even more encouraged when I see genuine love and respect between parents and their children with the father taking firm control of his responsibility as head of the family. I do honestly admire such men because to me, they are living up to their Godly assigned roles and responsibilities. And so, occasions to honour responsible fathers come as opportunities to dance with the fathers again.
I grew up with a father who, even in death, will always remain the world’s best father. Very altruistic, his responsibilities as a father were superb. From ensuring that each of his children got the best of education even with the little he had. He was on point with encouragements and the big and small things that made life comfortable for any growing child. Plus, he ensured at all times that his home was one of peace and comfort, every child was equally good to earn his love and care.
And so like my father of blessed memory, there are million others who are exceptionally responsible, loving and caring. They see their families as their reason on earth. To all such fathers, dead or alive, let us dance with them to whatever tune during this period of the celebration of fatherhood.
Complementing Mother’s Day, the third Sunday of June is set aside in some countries of the world to honour the real fathers and acknowledge their contribution in building families and being there as role models for the younger generation.
Today in many homes around the world, there are those men who have run and continue to run peaceful, loving and respected homes as the mothers take the back seat. These celebrated fathers are very much involved in the upbringing of their children from day one ensuring that their spiritual, material, moral and physical wellbeing are taken care of. But even more important, they ensure that as much as they can, they make themselves available to be part of the growing up of their children.
Regrettably, there are those species of fathers who only exist in name and not in deed. These fathers do not care about what their families do to survive. They bring pain and hurt in many children and have left them with broken lives, fractured hearts and dislocated future. What they do not realise is that the lack of parenting which they perpetuate is a contributing factor to streetism.
Children get easily swayed by their peers and bow to peer pressure. They cannot take decisions for themselves and would follow blindly, anyone who is ready to take decision for them, good or bad, until they become wiser. By that time, they would have plunged their precious lives into chaos.
Many responsible fathers have often wondered why some of their kind can just ignore their responsibilities. I remember some years back during the Father’s Day celebration in America that year in question, former President Barack Obama then Democratic Presidential Candidate, addressed a church gathering in Illinois. He used the occasion to lament the irresponsible behaviour of those many black fathers who had ignored responsibilities in their homes.
He said such behaviours of fathers had left vacuum in the lives of their children and contributed to a generation of misguided and de-motivated young black men and women roaming the communities with no specific aim in life. He talked those irresponsible black fathers down saying that nobody can make their lives better if they are not ready to help themselves and their families.
He advised them to take up responsible parenting and build motivated communities by staying at home and taking interest in the development and welfare of their families.
And he was right. Nobody can deny the fact that the father figure is a spiritual as well as a moral encouragement in the home. Children, both boys and girls, look up to their fathers to balance the motherly love and care. When they begin to see that the fatherly role is abandoned in their lives, they begin to build some hurt and betrayal which sometimes can even lead to serious detractions in their lives.
Unfortunately, in our society, the brunt is turned on the children when the marriage of the parents goes sour. There are countless children on our streets today leading immoral lives and sleeping rough and who are products of broken homes. Neglected and unguided, these children end up joining gangsters with the false belief that they will attain fulfilment in a life out there with gangs.
The irresponsible fathers are giving a bad name to fatherhood. But today, thank God there are institutions like WAJU and FIDA which will take up the cases of these irresponsible fathers in the bid to bring sanity into family life and more important, seek some level of comfort for the children so they can have some decent lives.
A few years ago, a Malawian court ruled against the adoption of a Malawian orphan, Chifundo “Mercy” James by the millionaire pop star, Madonna. I felt sad. This was a four-year-old girl whose teenage mother died shortly after giving birth. The biological father was at large and the mother’s family could not support her so the poor girl was taken into an orphanage.
There at the Mercy Orphanage in Malawi, Madonna spotted the girl and offered to give her a permanent happy and more settled home not through smuggling or child trafficking but by legal adoption. The biological father eventually did everything to frustrate Madonna’s good intentions for the child.
But God being good, a few weeks later the adoption case by Madonna was re-opened and that the biological father of the four-year-old girl was a lone voice of opposition to the pop star’s adoption.
We do have lots of fathers in our society today and who are causing much pain to their children. Fortunately, there are many more too who have lived up to expectation and brought up responsible children and continue to do so. To all such father-parents, I have my glass overflowing with champagne to toast to your happiness, long life and prosperity as you continue to grow responsible families.
May the music play on as the true fathers come up to the floor. It is time to dance with the fathers again.
This column wishes all the responsible fathers a happy and deserving Father’s Day on Sunday.
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