The Father’s Day

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We want our Grandfather’s Day too.

I FORGOT all about it; age must be catching up. Blame also the poor publicity: this year’s Father’s Day passed without the fanfare attached to Mother’s Day.

Actually, I did not know about it until I heard it mentioned in church last Sunday. Never mind, no noisy parties were thrown for me except a dinner for five at a new food centre in town; menu consisting of dumplings, mixed vegetables, tofu and, of course, rice. No night clubbing afterwards, straight home, and keep an eye on Hong Kong developments on the screen.

Amongst the huge crowd of protesters in that former British colony there must be thousands of fathers. Unhappy fathers. Not the time for the wives and the children to organise any celebration.

By contrast, here in peaceful Malaysia, there must be many happy fathers. Count me one.

Origin of the day

Curious about its origin or who in the world first celebrated it, I turned to my wife for a clue and then to Google for verification.

According to Google, “Father Day is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year on June 19, and it all began when a young woman wanted to honour her dad. In May of 1909, Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington, USA, sat in church listening to a Mother’s Day sermon. She decided a day for her dad, William Jackson Smart.”

There you are – we in Malaysia have been following a foreign tradition all this while. If it’s a good tradition, follow it.

To be a father or not to be?

Every man, American or otherwise, upon reaching the stage of adulthood, has to decide on his status: to be a father or not to be one. I wanted to be one, but the standard procedure was to acquire a wife first. I wasn’t sure how capable would I handle the situation when the first baby was due, but I was determined to do my best to look after him or her, come hail or high water.

While my wife was having the first baby in 1967, I nearly had kittens. I was practically evicted from the family home by a stern midwife. So I fled to a coffee shop down Chawan Road, worrying stiff about what was happening to my wife and the child. I actually left half a bottle of stout unconsumed; but a month later, I reclaimed the ‘other half’ for a full price – never mind the inflated price (RM2.50).

As it turned out, there had been nothing to worry about, really. The midwife actually smiled when she reported that I had a baby boy, I couldn’t wait to touch the baby. Boy or girl did not matter so long as the baby and mother were doing well. That was the most wonderful news of the year for the entire clan.

A father’s challenges

In every culture, a father’s role is shaped or dictated by the way of life of the community to which he belongs. In a rice farming community, for instance, the father spends a lot of his time on the fields; he comes home exhausted and the first thing he does is to see the baby, soundly asleep. In a fishing community, he spends a lot of time on the sea. Home at last, the first question he asks of the wife is about the baby’s health. The mother’s health is taken for granted.

Similarly, with a teacher who is a father or a father who is a teacher. The baby in Kedah is being looked after by the wife’s people while the father is away in Belaga or Lawas. Duty first. The same thing with a government servant who is a father posted to Limbang, while the newly-born baby is in Bau. Thank God, the mother and baby are well.

The advent of the smartphone has helped a lot in the matter of family separation. Mama, or granny, can snap a selfie of her and the baby, and send it to daddy with a message, “Dad, when are you home?” Daddy, tears of joy down his cheeks, thinks he is a lucky fellow indeed. Separation makes the heart grow fonder.

Many such examples of anxiety tinged with happiness can be cited. The fact is that many fathers are living a stressful life. In a situation like this, the father-child-mother relationship is affected. The father should be given a paternity leave, not three days, but at least three weeks. The mother is also anxious of her husband’s happiness and vice versa.

These are happy times. What about the unhappy times? Every father must be prepared for any eventuality – life is full of ups and downs, all the time.

There is no such person as the ideal father. A good father, however, dreams of an ideal situation in which his children will be happy and successful – at school or university, at work, at sport, and in marriage.

His anxieties will not end when he becomes a grandfather. He starts worrying about his grandchildren now. Are they all okay? Are they eating the right food?

Some grandparents are drivers, picking up their grandchildren from school or tuition. At home they work as amahs for free.

With all these stresses and strains that a father’s or grandfather’ role entails in the family, are you sure that you want to be a father?

I tell you that you do not know what you are missing, if you are not a father – your surname. There’s nobody to perpetuate it through the next generation and the one after that. Get married now.

Father-mother relationship

I have almost forgotten about the mother. Her role is complementary to that of the father in the procreation of a human being. The baby is theirs – a joint project entailing a joint responsibility in ensuring success of that project. Their responsibility is enormous – managing the good and the bad times. Not to forget about the father’s duty towards his wife.

For those reasons, why don’t we honour them both at the same time with a day of their own? Promote Parents’ Day. This will save a lot of money: Mothers’ Day, Father’s Day, birthday celebration for the first child, the second, the third … And what about the other anniversaries – Wedding, Gawai, Raya, Lunar Festival, Deepavali?

We may have to stop suggesting days now because the grandfathers will also demand their Grandfather’s Day as such. Expect trouble if the grandmothers are not given their own day too.

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