From these words of his message to me, this brother is apparently rethinking fatherhood.
“Let me tell you why I don’t bother my head about children again. It has to do with what happened at my brother’s burial some years ago. Their mother left the husband and relocated overseas through the help of a man that we later discovered was her former lover. She told my brother that her destiny (life of comfort and luxury) was calling her, so she left him with their children. That was when this man began to cater for those children. The last child was about seven years old when their mother left. My brother would come back from work at night and start helping them with assignments. Some weekends that I went to see them, he would be in the kitchen making soups for them, because they often rejected the food from someone he was paying to help out with their cooking. The children would tell you that “Daddy’s soup is sweeter”.
The children were already teenagers when their father’s health declined and he eventually died…in his mid-fifties.
Everybody’s concern was how the children would take the devastating news of their father’s death but to our shock, none of them cried on the day of his burial.
Not a single tear-drop because a few of us sat close to them and I was observing them.
While the funeral service was going on, their father’s casket was right before them but one of them was busy adjusting the handle of the hand bag that their mother bought for her.
Of course, their mother showed up when the man died, claiming that she came to mourn him but we all know she came for his properties.
She reached abroad and realized that life is not bread and butter over there. I was just asking myself “is this how easy it is for children to forget the sacrifices of a parent?”
That experience shook me! I try my best as a father but I don’t carry many things about the children on my head again. If my child feels I am not good enough as a father, let them go and find a better father.
If any child chooses to believe bad words about me over how I have treated them, it is their choice. It is not my problem.
I am not even half the father that my brother was, yet his death did not affect his children one bit. That man lived for his children.”
From Oby…
One thing that I want to tell men is this…
Don’t kill yourself over any child that doesn’t appreciate you!
The mistake is trying to use money to buy their affection or mend your relationship with them.
It will not work!!
Start looking around you and help children who need it. Sponsor their education. Mentor them. Empower those that are skilled.
The solution is not in rushing into marriage with a small girl to start procreating again when you are already past middle age.
How are you sure that it will go as planned? Find a suitable companion and live out the rest of your life in peace. Do more for humanity with your time and resources. There are many ways we can find fulfilment in life. Not every child that calls you “father” should come from your loins. Some are the children that life will give you due to your benevolence. If we start looking beyond ourselves, we will be largely happier.
I have also witnessed a similar incident at the burial of a relation. His coffin was right there before the children as the funeral rites was going on but the daughter brought out a mirror to look at her face, until someone gave her a knock on the head, from behind. Truth is that children of these days are disturbingly growing thin on compassion.
A friend was telling me that she overheard the niece lamenting that she doesn’t care about the father but she will be devastated if anything happens to the mother. That man stayed back to sweat it out in Nigeria while he relocated them overseas for a better life.
Yet, somehow, their mother is seen as the only hero in their lives. Women selfishly enable these sentiments in children and it is unfair.
Where the other parent is making efforts in their lives, always go out of your way to make the children understand that he is no less important in their lives.
God forbid you are not there tomorrow; I am not sure you want to leave behind children who would rather seek emotional succour out there than in their surviving parent.
We aren’t going to be here forever but what is more important is to leave stable children behind.
Credit: Chukwuneta Oby