How many of you, hard working mothers, out there recognize this question?
“SO WHAT???” …asks the ‘devoted’ father who makes a point to provocatively sit on the sofa as soon as he comes back from work and start playing a computer game right in front of his son. [The same son that you tried to detach from his computer game the whole afternoon and begged him to concentrate on his homework!!!] You have discussed with his father hundreds of times to be a good example for his son and he has agreed to do so, but then in the same instant, he ignores his promise and gives you the angry/confused/stupid look of ‘so what’, ‘get off of my back with your nagging’…and he is convinced that he is doing nothing wrong! Do you feel like screaming?
‘So what? What’s the big deal?’ – Asks the same father when you stop him from narrating to his son the story of his proud young days when he was a heart breaker and was changing girlfriends like shirts and damping one sexual partner after the other at the speed of light. How confusing is this for a young boy whose mother has been teaching him to respect girls and value their emotions and not hurt them intentionally??!!!!
‘So what? Get off of my back, he is too young, he does not understand” – says the other father who swears, smokes and drinks excessively in front of his son. No matter how many times you have explained to the ‘wild cave man’ [who somehow found his way to your living room] that his son will copy his behaviour just because the father is the primary role model for a boy, he does not seem to get it!!…and in order to defend his blatant stupidity and irresponsible conduct he ‘has a go at’ you for being too strict, too stuck up, over-protective and not letting a boy be a boy.
…and I wonder…isn’t it about time that common sense prevailed? I am not even going anywhere near the eloquent arguments of various schools of child psychology in an attempt to analyse the above mentioned fatherly conduct. I will only attempt, for argument’s sake, to answer to the “So what?” of these fathers with a very common sense”What if?”
- What if the moment the dad comes home, instead of playing a computer game he had a chat with his son and wife, helped in the kitchen to prepare dinner and behaved like part of a team who decides together what game they play?
- What if instead of bragging about his flirting and romantic conquering of the past, the father thought for a second that the girl his son will be ‘scoring’ with in the future could be the darling little daughter of another of the father’s mates down at the pub or football pitch…and this other father won’t be very happy when his little girl is not nicely treated by his best friend’s son!!
- What if all the drinking, smoking and swearing was replaced by a civilised behaviour that demonstrates to the son the real heroics of being a ‘good example dad’, a dad to be proud of, and not some kind of ’embarrassment on wheels’ dad!
Would this not be a better place to raise our sons… If only…common sense prevailed???!!!
Please, mothers with boys do watch out for your partners’ behaviours and what they stand for…and help them change for the sake of a better future generation of men.
Yours always,
Diana Z
Photo credit: www.nairaland.com
