Three Things Every Father Must Know About Fatherhood

What is Fatherhood to you? What pictures do you see when you hear the word "Father"? Who are in those pictures? What feelings do those pictures generate in you? Are the feelings pleasant?

Most of us may define the word "Father" according to our experiences of our own father. Conversely, we are the embodiment of the word "Father" to our kids. What do you think your kids see? What do you think your kids feel?

Hard questions, aren't they?

Allow me today to break the concept at different levels and let's explore each level together.

1. Fatherhood is an essential role in humanity.

Whether we like it or not, each human is born either male or female. At appropriate ages, the male produces the sperm while the female produces the egg that meet and form another human being with a gender. It's the cycle of life that began way before man began to understand anything, and it's a cycle that stays. Do we happen to think this cycle will ever gonna change?

Moreover, the cycle happens with other elements at play. Each person born on earth has an instinct to yearn for his or her mother and father, and vice-versa. It's part of our human nature. It's an inalienable part of our nature. You can suppress the action, but you cannot eliminate the yearning.

As fathers, how responsibly do we carry this role? As children, how much respect do we give to our fathers for carrying this role?

2. Fatherhood is an essential role in society.

The Philippines is a patriarchal society, whether we like it or not. Yes, we too are matricentric. Our mothers, and women in general, have a special and revered place in our society. But we're patriarchal just the same. The leadership in our society primarily runs along our male members.

What sort of leaders do we wish to see? Do we wish to see real men in leadership positions? Men with honor? Men with integrity? Men who know how to defend women and children from poverty or crime? Men who speak of prosperity and peace and act it out?

If so, fathers provide the model for their male children. What kind of father-son modeling is happening in our country these days?

3. Fatherhood is an essential role in the family.

Statistics from the United States show that children from fatherless homes are more prone to many bad things. Take these statistics cited at FathersForLife.org ...

• 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes. [U. S. D.H.H.S. Bureau of the Census]
• 90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes. 85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes. [Center for Disease Control]
• 80% of rapists motivated with displaced anger come from fatherless homes. [Criminal Justice and Behavior, Vol. 14 p. 403-26]
• 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes. [National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools]
• 70% of juveniles in state operated institutions come from fatherless homes [U.S. Dept. of Justice, Special Report, Sept., 1988]
• 85% of all youths sitting in prisons grew up in a fatherless home. [Fulton County Georgia Jail Populations and Texas Dept. of Corrections, 1992]

That's the USA. I wonder what the statistics in the Philippines are. Do you expect them to be different?

Anyhow, the US statistics were confirmed by a study in the United Kingdom by the Institute for the Study of Civil Society, which concludes that...

. . . the traditional family based upon a married father and mother is still the best environment for raising children, and it forms the soundest basis for the wider society.

For many mothers, fathers and children, the ‘fatherless family’ has meant poverty, emotional heartache, ill health, lost opportunities, and a lack of stability.

The study added a stern reminder . . .

Although a good society should tolerate people’s right to live as they wish, it must also hold adults responsible for the consequences of their actions. To do this, society must not shrink from evaluating the results of these actions.

Are family-oriented Filipinos exempt from this reminder? Let's see, with eight million Filipinos working abroad while their families are left behind, aren't we far from the phenomenon of the "fatherless family"?

How are our children doing? Are they coping well? Are they growing up well? When their turn comes, will they be good fathers as well?

Hard questions indeed.

May your son model on you rightly.


Marvin
RaisingFilipinoBoys.com

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RECOMMENDED READING:

• Fatherhood - What Can We Do, a blog by Isaac Milton