• Submitted by: admin
• Caribbean
• culture an traditions
• Destinations
• national
• Society
• 06 / 16 / 2008

---

There are wrong conceptions at family and social level that anyone can be father, but mother, there’s only one. Those who think like that are wrong, but they should have their own reasons, maybe wrong too.

The matter is that people need to prepare themselves to be father or mother; this is not taught in schools although several subjects reflect on these topics, much more nowadays than years ago.

Cuba even has the Responsible Motherhood and Fatherhood program, which helps young couples to plan the most suitable moment to have their children and how to face that incomparable moment.

I know fathers who are as ideal as mothers: they’re aware of the fact when they decided to add that status to their life they made a perennial commitment with the most important people in the world: children. I’ve seen them living together in their own homes, but I’ve also been fond of many who live physically away from their kids.

Likewise, I know women who did not deserve to give birth, as well as men who only did their “indispensable” bit, because even the least experienced knows that every human being is born with the intervention of a man and a woman.

But today, their day, I want to applaud in the name of many those good fathers who fathered one or several human beings along with their beloved woman and prepare and guide them so that they can go through the path of good throughout their entire life.

Any man even contributes his male qualities to “help” father a son in any woman who doesn’t wish to be engaged and decided to be a single mother.

Then, anyone can be a father, but those who know how to do it and every third Sunday in June (Fathers’ Day) is actually dedicated to them, because to them that profession is the most difficult and beautiful in the world too.

A key aspect in this topic is that anyone, even without fathering any human being, prepares him/herself and plays that role with his/her nephews and nieces, neighbors, friends’ children or any child that appears on his/her road.
I know many of those good men, biological fathers or not, and I do know they had the good fortune to be beloved children, to experience the example and care either from their mother or their father. They learned to be good mothers and fathers living it. They prepared themselves to assume father’s role, which’s as important and deep as mother’s.

When things fail

The ideal thing is that both members of the couple face the upbringing of their children under the same roof, but when this is impossible the man can continue playing his role without leaving mother alone in such a difficult process.

On occasion, those who live together with their children have fewer aptitudes and attitudes towards them and many times those who are away make themselves be felt more and guide their children better than those who spend most of their time with them.

The worst of the cases happens when the divorce is multiple: man and woman distance themselves after the separation of the couple but at the same time, and even both sometimes distance themselves physical and emotionally from those beings whom they lovingly planned to bring into the world one day, or perhaps they neither planned it nor made it with true love.

So, those children or teenagers seek refuge in a man who although he hasn’t fathered them, he gives them the love and care they need from the paternal figure. Many have the fortune to meet in life one of those men that I mentioned previously and then feel beloved by somebody who’s aware of the fact that father’s role is as important and necessary as mother’s, but these duties are both equal and different.

For their part, those who do not run the same luck to find a male figure that protects and supports them, express that lack in different ways; they’re generally introverted, sad, and sometimes rebels without an apparent cause…

Undoubtedly, as much mother and father have a necessary role for those defenseless and tender beings, who need so much love, cares, example, protection, food, home…

Advices for would-be fathers

Several advices are implicit throughout these lines: be sure that the person whom you chose to breed is the suitable one; prepare yourself psychological, social and economically, but if things fail in the couple relationship and separation becomes imperative:

Why to favor that harmful divorce between fathers and children, mainly because in most cases mother is the one who keeps the custody of the children?

They are the ones hit the hardest because of the absence and lack of support from father, who left home one day and sometimes makes a phone call, pays a visit or sends the monthly maintenance.

To prevent your children from experiencing this, think that those men do not realize or are not interested in the fact that their children need to tell them about their life, to receive caresses, affectionate words, to feel they are important to them.

Look around you and see the number of promiscuous, irresponsible and cool men who go through life fathering children whose existence they sometimes ignore. These men never manage to get to know how incomparable it is to see those little beings overcoming the different, wonderful and unrepeatable stages of their physical and spiritual growth.

Would-be fathers question the ignorance of those men who one day, when they start confronting troubles in life, appear and feel themselves with the right to receive love from their already grown-up and formed children, whom they turned their back one day when they were very defenceless.

And they even find it hard to admit when somebody reminds them that man reaps what he sows. A popular spot from Cuban television shows this message clearly: old Andres is going to die alone, because he, like those to whom I have referred chose the easiest road, that of irresponsibility, selfishness and oblivion of their questionable status as fathers.

Society needs good fathers and good mothers, nonindulgent, but who know how to mix some indispensable ingredients in the beautiful task of guiding their kids. These are several of those components:

To bring them up with discipline.
To allow their mistakes because nobody is perfect.
To agree with their individuality and to help them correct their mistakes.
To teach them appreciate life and to achieve their aims.
To respect the difference in opinions and decisions between father and son.
To share rough and happy moments, to talk and help them in their homeworks.
To be a good example, because words teach, but examples attract.
To loyal and support them in the worst times; this gives them more security.
To place challenges before them so that they become hard-working and independent.
To be their first teacher, along with their mother, giving them lessons on human values.
To project them in difficult times so they understand the value of sacrifice.
To provide them with love and to tell them that you love them above all.

(CubaSi)