FATHERHOOD REFLECTIONS

A friend told me earlier this month, "You become a man the day you understand your father." "Understand, not agree with him, but understand him..." It is an old tale, but it was refreshing to hear it again. 

Fathers are extremely misunderstood here, and in the African context, mothers are seen as holy saints, always victims. While some fathers are downright irresponsible, the agency of women in the choices men make as they age is conveniently ignored, and I think it is time we spoke about it. 

Because every day, I meet friends with a broken relationship with their fathers. For some innocuous reason, matatu drivers always open up to me a lot. Maybe because I ride in the front of matatus most of the time, I get chatty, and nearly half of them have nothing fancy to talk about their fathers. And more men out here work hard to help their mothers, and if the fathers are still alive, they are merely afterthoughts.   When I find an adult yet to come to terms with the choices their parents made, I am a bit disappointed.

 Maybe it's because I went to boarding school at a young age, before I could pronounce my second name, and never got close to my parents to the point of getting involved in their business, but still.

 Parents are capable of inflicting the worst pain on children, especially through desertion, both physical and psychological. Whereas in Africa, it is fathers who sometimes mess, in the West, I have noticed there are women with no motherly traits and no feelings for the children they sire.

 One of my favorited French writers, Michel Houlebecq, has such a frosty relationship with his mother, which he has featured in his books. He sort of never forgave her. It is something I have noticed among millennial women lately. I have seen a number of parents who have zero feelings towards their own children. I squarely blame capitalism. But motherly failures in parenting are never scrutinized as fatherly failures. Maybe it's because motherly failures are not as common as fatherly failures.

 Granted But when I listen to some adults complain about their fathers' not attending their karaoke or showing up at school with only a newspaper, I laugh inwardly, because I remember more than half the kids in high school were never visited on visiting day, and we never made this a big deal. We were grateful that we were in some good schools. There were others who probably had it worse. 

.Some adults take having a present father for granted, when some people have never even called anyone father. And this is not about getting you weepy or letting your father off easily from his responsibilities. It is just for perspective. 

But people walk different journeys. And that is something as an adult you have to think about. You make mistakes. You make poor choices. You drink more than you should. You are extravagant. You have probably made a dozen business mistakes that were costly and maybe you have never recovered from them. And never will. You are probably a very bad partner. You are proud, stubborn, silly, and a cheater. But somehow, you still judge your father or mother harshly. Do you ever stop to think that your parents are human beings, individuals who are fallible like you? that they had their individual weaknesses. Maybe daddy ran away. Maybe daddy was absent. Maybe he never bought you even a belt. Maybe Daddy kept a mistress who brought shame on the day he was buried. Maybe.

 All our mothers' sins are easily forgiven, but we are very harsh on fathers. But one thing I know is that mothers are not innocent. I have seen mothers who drive a wedge between the children and their fathers to buy more sympathy so that they can receive more money and better stipends, especially from their kids in "mache ngumbu," or "Diaspora." It is easy to say that the fathers were tyrants. 

We rarely pause to think about the circumstances under which they operated. We don't know what demons were battering them. Because millennials can be an ungrateful bunch. As a young man, everything that never made sense when we were growing up is now crystal clear like distilled water.

 Now we know why some men can't leave the bar; they wait until everyone has slept before they can sneak back home. We understand why men keep secret families. We understand why some men do the things they do. Now, understanding does not mean approval or support. But it is coming to terms with the imperfections of life and the disappointments of adulthood. I have been a harsh critic of older men, but it is with a lot of pain that I swallow my words on some things. Women talk a good game about how their lived experience is a daily horror. But as a man, I know that men are not having fun, whether driving that range or doing mjengo.

 Take your time to understand who your parents are or were. Talk to your father if he is still around. Ask around why he was/is a tyrant. Did he inherit it? Was it because of his work, peer pressure, or community expectations? By understanding these things, they can make you improve on where you failed. But to sit there and judge him, then neglect him, waiting for him to die in order to put up a huge obituary and print T-shirts to lie to the world isn't cool. 

  NB:When we write stuff like this, there are those who instantly think that,"maybe he has father issues, maybe he is going through a phase,his father hurt him".. I am not by any chance. This is blog is inspired by insomnia