The many ways to be a father

So we are a week away from the funniest day on the calendar, ladies and gentlemen. On June 18 it’s Father’s Day. There are many things that are close to my heart, but I am a feminist.

One of the things that bothers me no end is the absence of the father figure in modern day society.

This is best demonstrated in the new acceptance of the missing fathers. Men of my age are fathers to hordes of children who don’t know them.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not only talking about the fathers who disappeared while the mother was in the delivery room. Let’s discuss the “married but single” mothers who raise children with “married but single” fathers.

These fathers are a physical presence in the house for proof of residence but are emotionally absent. These are the fathers who take a leave of absence whenever the friends want to go drinking.

The children are raised to know that their fathers are “night crawlers” and the life and soul of every party.

Their fathers can’t help with homework but come June 18, the gift cannot be given to him too early as he must first overcome a hangover, and not too late as he has to go celebrate Father’s Day with his friends.

Then yes, there is the father who disappeared when the mother went into the delivery room. You know, the fathers who always temporarily resurface when the child hits adolescence.

I call them the “eclipse fathers” because their appearance is fleeting and irregular. We then have the “friend father”, the one who will watch you misbehave and perhaps even be an accomplice.

This is the kind of father who will let his friends buy his child a mansion in a Middle Eastern country at the expense of an entire nation, knowing the transaction as a whole is just wrong.

But then there is the real dad, the one who will be both a father and dad, a friend and a disciplinarian and provider.

The world is so consumed by the negatives that we forget to celebrate the reliable, dependable ones.

So come June 18, may we celebrate the ones who truly deserve the credit.

Kekeletso Nakeli-Dhliwayo

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