Fathers’ Day and Cryptic Maneuvers

On the 19th June 2021, a Sunday morning, I woke up to a painted social media of fathers being celebrated in width and breadth. It was a surprise for me and a couple of more men I suppose. But then, in trying to stand with fellow men, I tried to throw a few happy Father’s Day regards to my friends who are actually fathers and I wasn’t surprised by their reactions.
Most of them gave me that look that leaves you in confusion as to whether it is a surprise to them or rather, they choose not give it a damn. Yet it could be understood to mean a lot of actual confusion that comes with the pact of fatherhood.
I am sure it is fathers only who can understand what I am talking about. This has more to do with the fact that on this role of fatherhood and parenting, there is little experience that comes with it. One has to learn on the job.
The same can be said of motherhood. But fatherhood comes with more clandestine mysteries and feelings. Like the CEO of a company, a father has the organizational family as priority number one. In the process, tradeoffs must be made in order to be relevant across the board.
If a father puts their heart into the business of providing for the family alone, they risk being absent dads and husbands. They fail to provide for the family, they may end up being served the patriarchal bankruptcy and their relations in general being put on receivership.
In a simpler language, they can lose their families. And to understand the cost of loss of family for a man, watch what happens when an animal sees a threat towards their young ones. Their reactions can tell you how we human beings can react in similar scenario.
A more terrifying case is when an animal can’t provide protection for their companions and young ones. Such a reaction gets magnified in a man’s case. Seeing one lose their family because things became too tough and their wives couldn’t understand breaks a man down to their innermost nerves.
And the fear of such ensures that most men are on their toes all the time. To fathers, it is mostly a never-ending race throughout life. And as you may be pretty aware, the lack of multi-tasking capabilities for the high testosterone gender complicates their own life.
So, it is being on the lanes one at a time, in order to ensure that the trophy comes home at the end of the day. Interestingly, the scores finally don’t get to be served the participant. Why? With all the hard work and toiling, it gets said that that is what is expected of them, men. In a nutshell, fathers run the race of their lives in order for their families to be accorded the scores.
You may be wondering then, why more of the young men are taking the bold step of becoming fathers when everything else points otherwise. Simply said, fatherhood is for the bold ones and not for cowards. It is about selfless living and taking the risk.
Remember the days you could come home to your dad who didn’t have a job or if they had one, it wasn’t meaningful and you asked for money from them and expected them to give it to you. Not to mention that you also looked forward to a water simmering meal.
Fast forward, it is today that you look back and you become grateful of the sacrifice. Perhaps the more important reason why we celebrate Father’s Day. The never-ending sacrifices they made for us and on the cost of themselves in order for us to have a life too.
While they did this at their own expense, we grew up not judged of the return we served that sacrifice. Imagine your father owning only two pairs of shoes so that you could have three. Imagine your father surviving on two meals or even one so that you could enjoy three. Not to mention of the sleepless nights our fathers had to endure to figure out the course of our lives. And many more other graceful pacts we enjoyed.
No wonder we are always reminded that nobody can take their positions. The most grievous folly of all human mischief is when people decide to dishonor and disown their parents who perhaps ended up in their current states as a result of ensuring that those disowning them can themselves have honor.
I thus rally massively that we far better be good people in real life to our dads more than we can be to them on social media. As this day comes and goes and the usual glamour of posting our dads’ pics with nice words along takes the center-stage, we must pledge to move beyond the virtual.
President Harry S Truman said of the American soldiers/heroes of the civil war, “Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid, they have earned our undying gratitude. America will never forget their sacrifices. “
So do I say of my father and all fathers, that our debt to them in ensuring that we manned up and became people of value to us and our loved ones as well can never be repaid. They have thus, continually, earned our undying gratitude also and that we will never forget their sacrifices.
Happy fathers every other day!
End.
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