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NewsDay

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Fathers deserves more respect

Opinion & Analysis
Recently, Zimbabwe and the rest of the world celebrated Father’s Day. A special day for fathers in which they are honoured and women, sons and daughters express gratitude to men who have and will sacrifice everything, including their own lives for their families to be better, even by the slightest of margins. This is what it means to be a dad.

By Rukudzo M Mangoma

Recently, Zimbabwe and the rest of the world celebrated Father’s Day. A special day for fathers in which they are honoured and women, sons and daughters express gratitude to men who have and will sacrifice everything, including their own lives for their families to be better, even by the slightest of margins. This is what it means to be a dad.

As a man myself, I one day aspire to be a father, because I feel fatherhood is the highest attainment a man can have which provides meaning to his life. You might have a lot of money, fast cars, academically-talented, but none will give you as much fulfilment as being a dad.

However, of late, the way in which we celebrated Father’s Day has dropped worrisomely. It seems that fathers are no longer considered as that important.

In all my years of life, four of them spent studying development studies at Great Zimbabwe University, not once have I questioned myself if fathers are still relevant in a child’s development.

For all throughout history the necessity of fathers would have been like explaining why water, or air is necessary. But we live in a time in which the obvious is routinely denied.

There have been articles in the most prestigious of journals that deny the importance of fathers. For example, The Atlantic Magazine published an article titled  Are Fathers Necessary?, A Paternal Contribution May Not Be Needed.

Fortunately, this dismissal of the importance of fathers is not universal. In 2008, a Father’s Day speech by then United States President Barack Obama said: “Fathers are ‘critical’ to the foundation of each family, that they are teachers and coaches; They are mentors and role models, they are examples of success, and they are the ones who constantly push us towards it.”

What makes his comments particularly noteworthy is that Obama grew up without a father. Both boys and girls need fathers.

A boy has no built-in understanding about how to be a man, that is a good and responsible man. Male nature is wild, most obviously regarding sex and violence.

If a boy does not have a father who models how a man controls himself, he will most likely not know how to control himself, let alone want to. That is why most males in Zimbabwe’s  prisons for violent crimes grew up without a father.

After days of riots in 2011 in the United Kingdom, publicist Christina Odone wrote a column for The London Telegraph titled: London Riots : Absent Fathers have a lot to answer for.

In the column, she wrote: “The majority of rioters are gang members … like the overwhelming majority of youth offenders behind bars, these gang members have one thing in common, no father at home.”

There is no question that many mothers have done excellent jobs raising a boy without their father.

But common sense alone will suggest that a mother simply cannot model to a boy what it means to be a man anymore a man can model to a girl what it means to be a woman.

And then comes the wild nature of boys, few mothers have been able to do this, but if a boy is at all difficult as so many are, as he gets older, most mothers will find it  more and more difficult to control their sons.

This is because unruly boys listen to their fathers more than they listen to their mothers. Which is precisely why most violent criminals grew up in fatherless homes. They obviously did not listen to their mothers.

With regards to daughters, the father is the man girls learn to relate to. Without a father to relate and bond with there are at least two destructive consequences.

First, she will not know how to choose a man wisely. She will not know how a man should treat her. She will end up with a man who will mistreat her.

Second, to fulfil her desire to bond with a man, as primal a yearning in most women, as bonding with a woman is in most men, she will go from man to man.

Girls without fathers in their lives are far more likely to be sexually promiscuous and to begin sexual activity at such an early age, which is why most women are depressed.

Few women find solace in sleeping with random men.

Finally, fathers give both sons and daughters the thing they need the most, a sense of safety and security. As much as children need love, they need and require security more.

This is why most child-oriented organisations are focused on the safety of the child as their key objective. That is why in general, mothers give love and dads give security.

In conclusion, I say fathers are important, just like men are important in the world.

This is because men who defend us from crime, men who provide food on our tables, men who lead us to better lives, men who teach us life lessons are our fathers, thus fathers are necessary.

  • Rukudzo Misheck Mangoma is a graduate in development studies. He writes here in his personal capacity.