ƒ–Š‡”Ǧ‹‰ ™‹–Š ™ƒ”–Š

In the New Testament, the seventh day of the week is called the Sabbath, which is Saturday; it is mentioned 58 times. The first day of the week

CPSYCHODELIC STALL RUNSFORD LARYEA

ULTURALLY, we (as Africans) generally have our own uniquely different interpretations, narratives and understanding in terms of how (as parents) our relationships with our children go. This involves the nature, quality and durability of the socio-emotional bond that we form with our children and how that influences their growth and prospective development as parents themselves.

By comparison with the West, for instance, as parents we are traditionally very reserved, very calculated and maybe sometimes a little stingy towards our children when it comes to expression of emotion, displays of affection and the overall covert manner with which we use to transmit our feelings toward our children.

Learn

This is not to say we are incapable of doing it, however, we opt for the minimalistic route in

most cases and as a generational consequence, many people who are parents now have had to learn how to be an open, emotional expressionist father or mother to their sons or daughter with no background knowledge of how to do it.

Not to boast about how keen an eye I possess, however, this I have noticed as being very prevalent in and among fathers and their sons. Again, this is not to declare that the fathers in our culture and communities are not fit for purpose because some of them are, it just serves to point out perhaps the seldom nature of more overt, less one-sided father-son or ‘bro-like’ relationships in our society and our country as a whole.

Barrier

In the past, male figures were almost inclined to maintain a cold, distant and sometimes volatile relationship with his children, both boys and girls. What this did was to create somewhat of a psycho-emotional barrier between a father and his children since to get through to him, the mother had to be the vessel. Hence, people who were born into a social setting such as that, have luke-warm accounts of how their father is (or was) as a person and in some cases, if the relationship is volatile enough, it fractures sending the family into disarray.

Therefore, plenty individuals have grown up with or around a father who made little to no psycho-emotional contribution to their being. In as much as the physical needs may have been taken care of, the dimension that involves

the input of an older male figure to the life of a younger male is equally as valuable and it is rather unfortunate that many people were starved of this. Getting a warm embrace from your father, for instance, sharing jokes with him while you take a walk or the basic fatherly reassurance even after you have disappointed him; are things that contribute positively to the formation of a future adult. The love and care of a mother is often said to be unmatched, however, that of a father who shows it and backs it up with tangible emotional evidence is a close second.

For males, of course it provides them a psychological template and emotional backdrop from which they can model their own fatherhood skillset and generally become a platform from which they too can pass onto their own parenting that fathers too can be emotionally warm and comforting. For girls, the impact of an involved father is similar because of the role it plays in recreating, rewriting and restoring the image of a male figure in our communities, as well as on personal level.

Rewriting the former narrative of how fathers should be is an important contributor to our society in that if more men are guided, mended and built, the higher the likelihood of less calamitous stories associated with men we would see emerge. This would only prove as a positive and the way to go in re-establishing well-being in our families and more peace in our communities. Send comments to runsford0505@gmail.com.