I didn’t realise it’s Father’s Day this coming Sunday until just yesterday, when I came across a blog post mentioning about it. Not very surprising though, since Father’s Day has always been much less publicised (especially commercially) and celebrated than Mother’s day.

Well, I’m not complaining about that though, since I very well understand why this is so. A mother’s love for her child easily overshadows that of a father’s most of the time and it’s not difficult to verify that by observing people around us or simply by surfing the Web. How often do we see fathers proudly talking about their children online or showing their photos proudly on phones to their friends and colleagues? Definitely not as much as mothers do.

Whether it’s due to social or biological factors, men are generally more inclined towards building up their career (and thus getting a bigger car + ego) than focusing on building up stronger bonds with their families. I’m not saying this is a bad thing though, especially since in a meritocracy country like Singapore, money do matters a lot. It’s just where most men derive their joy or self-worth from.

Okay, enough of generalising people from my own gender. My point is, even if bringing up their children isn’t on the agenda in most men, I still feel it’s very important for fathers to make the effort to spend time on building up bonds with our offsprings. Since we are the ones who brought them to this world, I feel it’s our responsibility to ensure they are well loved and mould them into useful and morally ethical people.

Back to myself, it’s not the first day I feel I’m somewhat different from most men (okay, stereotyping in the works~) around me. Well, I still bring back a decent amount of bacon at the end of every month, but that’s not where my main feeling of happiness is dervied from. Yes, you guessed it, the joy of returning home with a cosy feeling seeing my wonderful wife and adorable son easily beats everything else in my life (well, maybe except from winning the grand prize in Toto?).

My main objective of writing this post is not to advocate the importance of strong family bonds or asking people to make the effort to eat with your families (that’s their job, not mine) but to share my thoughts and feelings based on the experience of bringing up our almost-2-year-old child, and how one can become a better father. I understand that some may feel that the experiences from parents with multiple children would be more valuable than those with single children (that’s me!) but still, seeing that the thoughts of our local daddies are already so rarely expressed on blogs, I’m still going ahead with penning our my thoughts (I’m not going to stop here after writing such a loooong introduction~). ^^|

People often say it’s easy being a father (most of the time it just requires enjoying the process of pro-creation) but not so to become a good one. I won’t say I’m one fantastic daddy but I think I’m still okay, so here I’m sharing some of my thoughts on how one (me included) could become a better dad:

Share and Take Up Responsibility

It’s definitely an overwhelming experience while welcoming a completely new family member and saying bye-bye to what might be once a carefree and loving couple life, but one has to acknowledge that a big change is indeed coming and embrace it.

Having a child is said to be one of the biggest change to marriage lives and it can easily make or break a marriage. I agree. Lots of sacrifices and compromises have to be made to ensure one’s marriage heads towards the light in the tunnel. Expectations between the couple and caregivers have to be communicated and agreed upon, while responsibilities and chores have to be shared to ensure things will work out amicably.

Although I’m currently the sole breadwinner for the family, I always tell myself not to let that be an excuse to shun away from the responsibilities of a father. I make it a point to accompany Darius with his activities and games even when I’m tired from a hard day’s work, and not to vent any frustration from the day on my family.

I’m glad that we’re fortunate to have a comfortable routine for Darius, where he will be asleep by 9pm plus and Catherine and I can have our ‘me’ times thereafter. That, I think is really important to ensure that our sanity continues to be kept in check while enjoying some freedom and taking a breather from our parental roles.

Unconditional Love

This has to be the one most important factor which I believe motivates one towards becoming a good parent – unconditional love. I can’t stress how crucial this is, be it in a parent-child or husband-wife relationships.

Only after becoming a parent do I understand the unconditional love my parents have given to me through my growing years, and made me learn how to love my child unconditionally too. Even in cases where one’s parents had not done their jobs well in taking good care of him/her, we must still remind ourselves to learn from their mistakes instead of redirecting these negative feelings onto our child and cause them to suffer the same way too.

During times when I get frustrated or exhausted over our daily tasks and routines (this feeling seems to creep up on me especially during times when I’m feeling unwell), I reminded myself of the reason why I’m sacrificing my time and effort on Darius — it’s simply because I love him and want to do my best in making him happy and a better person in life. Every time I reminded myself of this, it helped me forget my negative feelings and re-vitalised myself to continue moving on.

Enjoy Being a Father

To do well in something, passion is usually part of the equation. And to become passionate in something, it’s important to be really enjoying what one is doing. That’s why many happy and successful people out there become what they are today because they enjoy what they were doing. Similarly, to become a happy and good father, one has to enjoy being one in the first place.

So do I enjoy being a father? Certainly! I’m sure most of our readers can tell from my posts. I’m proud of Darius and often tell myself that it’s a blessing to have become his father (although it can be the other way round too? ^^) and I should cherish our times together, especially when we are now still young and healthy. And that we shouldn’t take things for granted and regret it only when these valuable things are being taken away from us. Of course, Darius has also lived up to his side of the bargain by livening and cheering up our lives, easily negating the occasional frustration or anguish that he might have caused us. ^^|

Phew… Alright! I guess that sums up the three most important things of being one wonderful father!

Hope my experiences shared will have helped somebody in some corner of this world and last but not least, here’s wishing all daddies out there a Happy Father’s Day!

Below: A Video Montage of My Wonderful Memories With Darius made by Cat.

*To Hubby:

I think I chose a too emotional song…I teared everytime I viewed this montage.  T^T Was remembering all the difficult times we had gone through in his babyhood, when the two of us had to solve everything by ourselves. When outside help wasn’t much help. When we stood together against many ‘advices’ thrown to us and decided HOW BEST to raise our darling. Only WE would know. No one else. Thank you so much, Hubby for your never-ending support! Happy 6th Year Wedding Anniversary to us! Known you for 11 years and married for 6. You are always my best friend, a great husband and a very much loved Daddy.*

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