Dear Editor,
You may have heard your kid singing that song praising mothers for all their laborious work and granting them unconditional love. Fathers are nowhere reflected in this song except to love them once after mother’s thrice. Does this contribute to children always saying they love their mothers more? Shouldn’t it be equal?
As hard as it is to make money, so too it is for fathers to get love these days, let alone equal love. Not that one takes care of the family in order to receive Father’s Day cards and birthday presents. Not that one is a father so he may use his children to offset his expenses and be secure on retirement. But honouring a father has become a weird concept, although the Prophet has rightly equated pleasing one’s father to pleasing God. People express that differently, but the point is too many squabbles between parents, sometimes violent, and even causing separation, lead to terrible disturbance in the minds of children. Children will honour the parents once they honour themselves.
Fathers also experience childbirth pains and are entitled to some loving. But again men seem to come over as macho, so they don’t hug and kiss. When a man brought his child in the presence of the Prophet and he kissed him, the man exclaimed he did not do that! What did the Prophet reply?
If Allah removed love from your heart who am I to enter it? It’s not wrong to hug your boys and especially girls, and say ‘I love you,’ and say how beautiful they are. But sometimes the cultural burden is too much. Some fathers are so into the haram and halal of what the kids are doing, that they forget to appreciate them for who they are.
The best sadaqa and charity one can expend on one’s family is time, and believe that parents really are soccer moms and hockey dads. Nothing compared to living in the old country way back! You play and come home. Now play is a job. But the time spent will be well rewarded. Boys will see their dad as role models. Going out on family events and to Masjid dinners all help cement this relationship. So when the time comes to show love to the father there is reason to it, although love itself has no reason.
Parenting nowadays takes conferences and guide books. Imagine parenting a child needs a PhD in techniques. But while this may be new the reality, the fundamentals of parenting remain the same: closeness, sincerity, time, good listening skills, empathy, hugging and providing. Why would a child leave a divorced mother’s home and relish living with a poor father? It’s because somewhere his parenting skills meant love – not shouting and judging but embracing and understanding. Today many youths do not tell their parents the secrets of their lives until they get into trouble. A father is most times the best friend of his daughter, not because he knows the jokes that make her smile, but more importantly he can assure her he will not get angry at her silly mistakes.
Fathers should love and children should love them like mothers, equally.
Yours faithfully,
Habeeb Alli
