By Sriharsh Vaidya
Contributory Author for Spark Igniting Minds
It was a wonderful Sunday morning and me along with my family was in the ISKCON temple. It was a surprise when one of my friends called me and told me to write a small write-up on father's day. He has been pushing me for the last couple of months to start writing as he seems to be aware of my skills. I simply acknowledged and told him that I will submit my article by evening, though I don't know where he will publish!
In the evening, I came to know it's going to be published on www.sparkignitingminds.com where many other articles on father's day are going to get published.
This is the first article of my life and that too on father's day. I express my gratitude to all the readers who chose to read this article and it will be a great encouragement for me if you will be able to share your valuable comments for the same.
I hope you have decided to read this article completely with focus and with an open mind.
If yes, then I believe you will enjoy reading. If not, then probably it will be a good decision to close it for now and come back whenever you feel open to it.
I can understand how tough it is to give full attention to every text, every call, and every happening around you. We all have busy lives and we hardly find any time to go through all that we come across. Nevertheless, I believe it's always worth to feed our mind by reading some heartfelt write-ups like this.
In this article, I wish to mention the role and characteristics of a mother too so that to bring out clarity in expressing the role of a father. Honestly, I could not find any other alternative to this. I feel mother & father are inseparable even in writing.
Well, when the content is related to father, I believe we should be very careful and be prepared to receive love in different dimensions. Unlike mothers, fathers will have some different methodologies to bring up their kids. In general, Father is a person who is exposed to multiple environments (work, society, family, finances, etc.) more heavily in his day to day life unlike others, thus his emotions are executed differently in different stages of life. It’s a well-known fact that his way of showing love is not the same when you are a baby and when you are a teenager. As you grow in life from a baby to toddler to child to teenager to young adult to middle age, the way you perceive your father, and the way your father perceives you go through a drastic change. With time, once your hero who brings you freedom will turn into someone who will be a freedom blocker. The one who brings happiness to you at any cost may become the one who seems against what makes you happy. (Can you relate yourself with this thought?)
Such a critical role, which is constantly in anxiety to build a better future for the whole family. He often gets rejected internally for most of his actions because they seem unfavorable for us today, though the same actions eventually, bring the well-being of the whole family. Isn’t it?
Overall the world has witnessed almost the same kind of motherhood from almost every mother on this planet earth. All mothers are wonderful. They have immense love for their kids and their love or the way they show their love won't differ most of the time. They are simply predictable. Getting love from them is almost guaranteed irrespective of your social and professional standings. They don’t care much whether you are a CEO or clerk, for them you are a baby to be taken care of. But when it comes to father, it’s a different story altogether. The same role has been portrayed by different people in different conditions of life.
I would like to share something about some of the kinds which I experienced in my journey of life. Some I have seen, some I have heard about, one which I experienced and the one which I am playing currently. I believe you also have your own list of different kinds of the father. (Though you didn’t make it on paper I guess you can recall few.) Well, it would be great if I can put all this kind through a flow chart but to simplify it I will put it in simple text.
I will take the following four different categories to explain:
Responsible father
Irresponsible father
My father
Me as a father
Responsible father; Further divided into:
a) Responsible and Expresses love often:
These kinds of fathers are very rare. They live beyond expectations and they express their love in words and actions very well. Their children aim to be like their father. Socially their status varies but the quality of love and care they provide for their kids is almost the same and fulfilling. They are approachable for their kids. No great secrets can be hidden from them. They give freedom to his kids and most probably the freedom is never misused. They may not give everything their kid's desire but there will be harmony and expectations gets managed through self- expression. Such fathers are less prone to illness or any bitter conditions in life. If you have such a father then you are fortunate. It’s your duty to keep him blissful.
b) Responsible but does not express love very often:
It’s a kind where there is always a communication gap. The love is there but unexpressed. Somehow expectations are managed but still, there will be something empty inside the relationship. Basic needs, some special needs are fulfilled through immense hard work but due to no self- expression, there will always exist little agitations. In this type, there is a chance that unsaid things will create uneasiness inside, and over a period of time they show up in some illness. Overall a regret of “not spent time well with my family” will eat up their life. If you have such a father then try to fill the gaps, bridge them somehow before it’s too late. They gave their best, you give yours. There are single fathers too who fall under this category who give their best in creating a better future for their children.
Irresponsible father: Further divided into:
a) Irresponsible but not harmful: These kinds of fathers do exist due to the improper upbringing by their parents or due to the destructive addictions or due to the physical disability or any other reason which never made them realize their role as a responsible father to their kids. Irresponsible but not harmful means they may not contribute to the well-being of the family to a great extent but their presence will not hamper the harmony too. Either they add little value or no value but at least we can be sure that there will be no degradation due to them. In this case, the mother becomes the lead in the family and put all struggles both as a mother and as a father. If you have such a father then you can either blame your destiny or you can put effort to make things better with him.
b) Irresponsible and destructive: The reason for being irresponsible may be the same as I mentioned earlier but it’s a kind where the family will always be out of harmony. Every day will be unpredictable. This happens in majorly where the sense of being is responsible for the family is completely burnt out in the mode of ignorance and destructive addictions. The majority of single mothers are a product of such destruction. If you have such a father then it’s time to take a hard step to improve the life of the rest of your family.
My father:
My father is somewhere between the two types of responsible fathers. For some time, there was a communication gap but over a period of time I have filled it and today I can say that we are doing pretty well. The majority of the things I asked him are given. He gave me the freedom to choose from all my life. Starting from schooling to career to marrying the girl I wish to marry, everything was my choice. I don’t know why but he always believed that I can make better choices than him so he kept himself away in any decision-making process related to me. In return, I proved him right by doing well with the majority of my decisions. As a non-business background person, he had a huge reluctance to let me start my own business but over a period of time, he took the same stand that he used to take for all my other decisions. I believe I am gifted with such a wonderful father who has always loved and added value to my life.
Me as a father:
Living the life of an entrepreneur who is yet to make great success brings a different experience altogether. All the general basics of family life seem shaken. In this condition being a father to a 4-year-old boy is a bit of a tough job, that too where your kids can think faster than you then, I hope you can understand how different will be the atmosphere.
I believe it’s too early to judge what kind of father I am but I think somewhere the knowledge and wisdom I acquired through different sources and experiences are helping me today in shaping myself as a good father. I am just improving with time. I too do blunders when it comes to taking care of a child, my wife still feels I am completely insane in this area (well, anything less than the perfect is considered insane). However, my son feels I am far better than his mom in some cases (yet his validation is invalid to his mom).
I think in the future, on a father’s day, my son would be able to write about his authentic observations/experiences with me in the form of an article and that day the world around will be able to fit me into one of the kinds which I mentioned in this article.
If you have reached this line with a pleasant experience then I believe you saying yes to read this article has been worth it.
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your time and focus on reading this article.
About the author:
Sriharsh Vaidya is a Pranic Psychotherapist, a Life Coach, and a Licensed Practitioner of NLP. He also contributes to and supports various learning and development initiatives that focus on areas such as entrepreneurship, psychology, and spiritual science. He is an MBA with a specialization in Marketing & Finance. Before he ventured into his business in 2013, he had worked at few chemical and biotech companies.