Is Fatherhood About Reason? or Intimidation?

Do Filipino fathers uphold reason or intimidation at home? Filipino (or "Pinoy") fathers raising boys may find this question a bit confrontational. Pinoy fathers usually demand obedience. Questions from kids are most unwelcome.

What if this path of Pinoy fatherhood leads to mediocrity? What if our sons grow up not asking questions because they KNOW something bad happens. Then we have a country that's easily intimidated by warlords, exactly what we're seeing nowadays. Not good.

My son has brains (as I believe every boy has). Moreover I think my son has street-type brains. He has the precious gift of expressing himself when he missses us, and he has developed the knack of developing his cases about why he should sleep on our bed with us tonight, why he should come with us to community gatherings, etc.

Seriously, he really builds his case, using some form of reason, or logic. Should I deal with his reasoning? or should I suppress it with intimidation and demand obedience, no matter what, because I AM his father? I decided against intimidation. I reason with my son. Life would judge me later.

When I was a boy I was very much like my son, capable of being sweet, but capable of being stubborn as well. I was punished physically and verbally for that. They demanded respect and obedience. I want my son to experience something different.

Don't get me wrong. We punish our son for his misbehaviors, but never for his eloquence. When he builds his case, we deal with him through reason, not intimidation. We want to support his eloquence. This is the way I want my son to grow up.

This is also the way I want my son to see his father: a man of reason, powered by passion, but master of his emotions. He doesn't hear what I say. He's a boy. But he sees what I do with big round eyes.

To me, intimidation as a way of raising boys has little place in this age of reason. There is too much intimidation in society today, starting with petty crimes to terrorism. Tama na! Palitan na! But, to me, the kinds of intimidation that kills manhood in this country is economic and political intimidation, and they're both there for everyone to see.

Because of lack of economic opportunities, millions of overseas Filipino workers have boys back home, growing up without a father to hold on to and have time with. 

To me the cure for this is entrepreneurship. That's easier said than done. Our only assurance in this direction is that, it is not impossible over generations. It is not impossible to teach a generation that 1+1=2, and that 3 less 4 is less than zero. That's basic mathematics. That's also basic entrepreneurship.

Political intimidation is something else. It is when people keep on hearing that the Philippines has a government for the people, of the people, and by the people, yet experience otherwise.

The cure for political intimidation is political education. No not the degrees from UP or Ateneo, but drawing out from our own children the attitude of looking at politicians as servants, and not as kings and queens of never never land.

When we shiver in the presence of these politicians as if they're kings and queens, our children see that! And because children see that, then that's what they will do! Then the cycle of political intimidation begins anew!


That is why I reason with my son and be the best example he can ever see. I want to stop the vicious cycle of economic and political intimidation right in my own turf, if that's all I will ever do. When a critical mass of fathers do this in this part of the globe, then we have a next generation of superstars.

Come to think of it, fathers---whoever you may be---may in fact be the only example our boys will ever see and imitate, good or bad. If our boys will grow up to be like us, will we like what we see?

I want to like what I'll see.