Fatherhood:The Child is the Father of a Man

All Saint's Anglican Church GRA Fathers Day

While growing up, I listened to mothers tell their female children: Don’t you know you are a woman, you need to be in the kitchen learning how to cook, you have to sit properly, you need to dress properly and look neat, you need to respect the boys because they are the men, etc and they end it by saying: so that you will marry a good husband.

On the other hand, when they talk to their female children about male children, I hear things like: Don’t you know that they are men; let them be. They can handle themselves; they can marry whoever they chose, etc. Even in churches and fellowships, years back and up till now, we have women's fellowships, Mothering Sunday, and sister's fellowships for young women or girls, with the mission of grooming and raising women to be the best homemakers. But then, men, as usual, were left out because they are the men or maybe they were left to be trained by God in their dreams. I thank God that we are beginning to have men's fellowships and fathers day.

So there, today, most boys go to football fields on Sunday mornings instead of attending church, 80% of prison inmates are men, 70% of divorce cases and marital problems are caused by men, Men have above 70% representation in Nigeria leadership circle and they are the ones polluting the polity, violent cults in and out of Nigerian schools are men dominated, bars and clubhouses are filled with men drinking and getting drunk; the bitter truth is that most of the well trained and morally sound girls or ladies will still end up with most of these men who eventually gives them a different training - hope you are getting the logic.

The question now is: Are boys made of stone? Don’t they deserve moral training as well as the girls, so as to create a balanced society that is with minimal crime and problems? Were they exempted from 'Train up a child in the way he should go so that when he is old, he will not depart from it' command from God? This is a big issue that shouldn’t be taken for granted. I am happy that concerned poets have thought about this and came up with ‘Boys Are Not Stone’ Anthology – Please watch out for it.

Elders and parents should please start doing the needful because according to William Wordsworth in his poem: The Rainbow, “The child is the father of a man”.  Fathers and grand fathers were once children. A well trained son can make a great nation but a useless son can pull down a continent. Thank God for its father’s month. Happy father’s month to all men out there.

Written by Olive Chinyere Amajuoyi

Recall that by this time last year, ideal olive wrote on the topic: Fatherhood: A Heritage that must be Recovered. Click on Ideal Olive to read again. 

Fatherhood: A Heritage that must be Recovered

Father's Day at All Saint's Ang. Church, GRA, Enugu

I have read a lot of novels, magazines, articles, etc. You may call them fiction, but what I saw and still see on the pages of those books are realities of past events, which are also the illumination of what is written in the book of all books – The Bible. The pages of those books paint pictures of what family should be, what fathers represent in their families and society; their roles and responsibilities, etc. Please don’t crucify me yet; I am not being one-sided here; this is men’s corner, and so, I will talk about fathers. Consequently, what I see around me contradicts the knowledge I have acquired from my library of novels and magazines.

Is it that those virtues of fatherhood have been lost, or am I just living in the world of fantasy – the world of my own. Are those virtues in my book collection not records of the life people have lived? Should they remain a history just to be told? Are they not supposed to be habitual?

Father's Day at All Saint's Anglican Church, GRA, Enugu

Today, to be a man is to belong to dangerous cults, to frequent brothels and club houses, drink to stupor, have baby mamas, etc.  More so, there is a gradual shift from being the MAN to becoming weaker than woman; whom God referred to as the weaker vessel. Most men these days enjoy lazing around and shifting all their responsibilities to women, and when things doesn’t go their way, women in their lives become victims of domestic violence.

In the pages of my novels and magazines, when a husband and father is away for more than two days, the vacuum in the house is obvious, and the day he will return, he is received with great excitement by his wife/wives and children.

The few that still has fatherhood virtues today feel insecure because they are not sure if their friends will still consider them as friends, just because they are being the MAN they should be.

Father's Day at All Saint's Anglican Church, GRA, Enugu

Men have got much to recover, lest, fatherhood will be lost forever. Men should work hard to get back their respect. They should go back to innovative thinking, discoveries, creativity, and entrepreneurship. They should go back to godly leadership of humility and excellence. When a man speaks, there should be a difference. I am not asking them to be perfect, because it is impossible, but I am asking them to attain that height that God has given them the grace to attain as the Priests and leaders of their homes and society. Life only gives one chance of being a father. There is only one chance to get things right as a father, and men should stop gambling with it. Fatherhood is a wonderful thing. It is a lost heritage that must be recovered.

Ideal Olive says happy Father’s day to all fathers out there!

Written by Olive Chinyere Amajuoyi