Skip to main content

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all fathers.

Its the day to remember the sacrifices you have made and the sweat you have put in to raise your children. I mean just look at you - working day and night, often against your will, submerging your desires to bring in finances, giving up your dreams to cherish the dreams of your children, why you deserve a big thank you!!

Today, things are even tougher for you. You have to figure out mind-boggling decisions - how much freedom to give your kids, how much to indulge them? The toughest nut to crack is how to instill good values and discipline in their minds without being preachy. Poor dad - how does he remain a figure his kids can look up to, yet not be intimidated by? Children today are miles ahead of you, you cannot demand their respect on account of position alone, you have to earn it.

The traditional roles of the father as the provider, and the lord and master of the house have undergone massive transformation. Also the father may not be the sole breadwinner anymore. A stay-at-home father has it twice harder to win over the confidence of his children. Societal norms are changing faster than you can blink. Today, you have to be a friend, but not someone your children can walk over. A confidant, a role-model, a protector, a counselor. All conflicting, contradicting roles.

To top it all, your kids will just leave you one fine morning to carry on with their lives. Then you are left with your empty nest, clutching memories of busier days left behind. Only look forward to an occasional meeting with them, when their busy schedule permits. Overnight the roles change, and you become the dependent one.

Tough times ahead for fathers, but we know our men will rise up to it. All the best fathers!!! 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Does Mother Mary Really Come? You bet!

Prolific writer-activist-thinker Arundhati Roy's memoir, an ode to her mother's formidable personality, is cleverly titled, Mother Mary Comes to Me. Below the title is a picture of young Roy nonchalantly smoking a bidi. Irreverence, thy name is Arundhati Roy! At 372 pages, it is a tome, a sweeping saga that recollects both her mother's remarkable life, as well as her own. Is it a Memoir? Yes and no. Though the book title refers to their mother-daughter relationship, the book - at several junctures treats each one of them as independent and exclusive from one another. In fact, for a good part, her mother finds no mention at all, and the reader is engrossed reading about Roy's exploits and struggles through Architecture College, early attempts to find her vocation and calling, her dabbling with cinema, acting, scriptwriting; her romantic liaisons with the luscious JC, Sanjay, Pradeep et al. A life as extraordinary and unapologetic as Arundhati's mesmerizes in itself. ...

The Sadness Within Us

A curious phenomenon has taken place over the years. Technology has advanced in leaps, modern medicine has become far more effective, we can control pain and disease far better, mental health is getting due attention, there are more avenues for creativity and entertainment.  Yet.... We are no longer able to be really happy. We are a chronically unhappy people. Forever dissatisfied, never content. Always thinking about the past or the future, never enjoying the moment. Think about it. When was the last time you were really, truly, wholly happy? Blissful, joyful? You slog hard at office, get that deserved raise/promotion, party hard to celebrate, and yet at the end of the day, a hollowness creeps in. An emptiness, a feeling of futility. You have a grand wedding - its the stuff Instagram dreams are made of. Your sweetheart looks like a million bucks with the latest designer lehenga, you yourself are spruced up, your family and friends are beaming, the event is going on swimmingly. Yet...

Emotional toil of festival times

Festivals are happy times, right? Time for merriment, revelry, celebration, enjoying yourself... Wrong! Studies show festivals call for a steady spike in stress levels. Cortisol shoots up, starting with preparation for festivals, and remains high throughout, in the quest to do everything perfectly, "at least during the festival". Guess who bears the brunt of this? Yes, its the one who takes emotional labour for everyone she cares for - the woman of the house. She wants everything to be perfect, so works her ass off tidying and cleaning things. Then she wants her family to be fed well, so spends hours toiling away making delicacies in the kitchen. Rangoli to be painted - there she is with the brush. Festoons to be hung up - she's balancing herself on a stool. Furniture rearranged, flowers put up, puja room decorated? Yes, only one person who signs up for all this. Then there's the stress of the whole family at home, stepping on each other's toes. She has to appease...