TIME TO SHOW FATHERS LOVE AND RESPECT
They should be appreciated, celebrated and gifted with cards, poems, handicraft projects, flowers, and chocolates
AS fathers are slowly but surely stepping up to the plate, and getting more involved in raising their children, the Fathers Day celebration is also gaining new momentum.
Mark Twain is believed to have said: “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much he had learnt in seven years.”
This great American writer was not only a gifted wordsmith, he was also blessed with a sharp wit and wicked sense of humour.
He was a keen observer of the human condition. Even a century and a half ago, he was well aware of the importance of a father figure in a young person’s life.
As for many still today, however, a father’s merit only came to bear fruit for him as a young adult.
A mother’s role in the family structure has been well established and her importance has a long history of being celebrated. We have all made countless Mothers Day cards.
We have attempted at creating poems of questionable literary value and we have tried our clumsy little hands at various craft projects of debatable usefulness; most of it in elementary school and with the tireless support of mostly female early childhood educators.
I, for one, can’t remember ever having crafted a Fathers Day present.
However, I distinctly remember my mother stating the fact that Fathers Day was every day and, therefore, required neither special mention nor effort.
Way back then, I guess she did have a point. Fathers were busy with important things, with the serious business of being the sole breadwinner of the family.
They had no time or inclination to change nappies, stuff pureed potatoes and carrots into reluctant baby faces, push a pram through the park on a rainy Sunday morning or sing lullabies in the middle of the night.
They didn’t sit through tantrums at bath or bedtime, drill young minds in mad minute math exercises or battle horrid traffic to make it to soccer practice after school.
Mum did the upbringing, and Mum got the card and the poem each May.
But times have changed since my days, and even since my kids’ days of early childhood.
Now fathers are playing a much more active role in the daily business of raising their progeny; a structural change in family dynamics that originated in Scandinavia.
Many significant innovations and social structure revolutions have been initiated in northern Europe. Did you know that Candy Crush is a Swedish export?
But I digress. Somehow, it comes as no surprise that these new kinds of fathers also originate from that part of the world.
What is a totally commonplace sight in northern countries is becoming quite conventional in Malaysian families as well.
While they would have been quite a sight a few years ago, today, you see dads at the playground keeping a watchful eye on the little ones while chatting with other dads, young men looking for the baby room in shopping malls and ayah in the swimming pool trying to convince a reluctant infant to take the plunge.
Modern fathers deserve a special day to be appreciated, celebrated and gifted with cards, poems, handicraft projects, flowers, and chocolates just like mothers do.
And in true Malaysian fashion, they deserve their very own, countrywide, special Fathers Day Mega Sale, of course.
Fathers Day is today. Mothers, teachers, grandparents and extended family members, I do hope you have done your due diligence.
I do hope the cards are crafted, the poems rhyme and the tie, pen or wallet purchased and gift wrapped, ready to be solemnly handed over to the deserving New-Age dads that mean the world to your children.
“My father didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.” — Clarence Budington Kelland, American writer (18811964)
And in true Malaysian fashion, they deserve their very own, countrywide, special Fathers Day Mega Sale, of course.
The writer is a life-long expatriate, a restless traveller, an observer of the human condition, and unapologetically insubordinate