FATHER’S PRESENCE IMPORTANT FOR CHILDREN

 Sir,

Sights of fathers being loving and gentle with their children are hard to come by. We occupy a world that has bestowed upon the mother/female to be the sole giver of affection, care and providing the day-to-day necessities a child may require. The man on the other hand, is basically expected to be the provider. His involvement in the home ends up being minimised to superficial interactions with the children and monitoring academic progress. Always something that doesn’t require emotional perusal. This role-playing was manufactured by some anonymous authority that has kept our fathers away from us, even when living in the same house. 

Absent

I always assumed that having an absent father meant one was definitely bound to have more daddy issues than say, a person whose father was present. A father’s absenteeism, I assume, created a vacuum in a child’s life of all the unlived memories that peers were sharing with their own fathers and the undiagnosed feelings of rejection that last way beyond childhood. But the more I interact with people, it’s evident that even children with present fathers have daddy issues. These issues seem to lie in the mere fact that children long for a relationship with their fathers, yet due to socialisation, fathers withhold that level of emotional interaction and assign that responsibility to the mother. Of course, this doesn’t apply to all fathers; some do share a much more personal relationship with their children. 

Presence

A father’s presence is often considered slightly less important and the mother’s presence highly valued. I guess it is because the woman carries the child for months, so to some biological extent, the mother shares a special bond with the children. We can see how viciously protective mothers are of their offspring, it’s everywhere across nature. But we should not undervalue any parent’s contribution to a child’s life. Both have certain roles that they need to play in moulding this young human.  But I cannot stress how important a father’s presence is; to both the girl and boy children.

The father-son dynamic is always plagued with interesting interactions. Fathers always view their sons as the child who will further the surname, it’s also biological. We are programmed to leave as many copies of our DNA as possible, therefore, the son is viewed as that conduit. But the way the structures of male-to-male interactions are set up, the father-son relationship begins to be plagued by tension as fathers have specific expectations of their sons, but deny them any emotional interaction. 

Create

We create the same pathologies of past generations because we as men are expected to be void of any feeling as this is inexplicably viewed as a weakness. Those sons then in turn teach their sons the same. This is why at times the son runs to the feminine energy, to gain relief from the hardness of the father-son relationship.  

I have much respect for fathers who love their children and are there for them. We know being a parent is probably the hardest job in the world, but you’re necessary to your children’s lives. 

Z N 

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