DEARTH OF MENTOR DADS

Tomorrow is Father’s Day. It’s a day when many celebrate fathers or male parental guardians. At a time of a bruised economy and fading goals, there is a greater need for mentor and present fathers than ever before.

Sadly there seems to be a dearth of these fathers. Not a death but a dearth. Dearth means an inadequate supply, scarcity or lack. Those who passed on can be excused.

But it is those who are alive and not fully playing their mentorship and guidance role in the lives of their children that are part of the dearth statistics. These are the ones dating girls younger than their children and exposing the irresponsible behaviour to their children.

Their appalling intergenerational relationships with younger girls extinguish the flames of hope for the children they brought to the earth. The dads who put hearts under pictures of scantily clad teenagers on social media and lust after barely legal children instead of scrolling past their pictures and being responsible men of society.

loss of model fathers

This is just one example that shows a disintegrating and loss of model fathers. There are dozens I am sure many can share. Sadly they are not present as the ever escalating numbers of maintenance cases proves. We can do better as men. And we applaud those who do better.

But let us now look at the positive role that they could be playing as we set ourselves up to honour them tomorrow. And interestingly Father’s Day is slap, bang in the middle of a month in which we also commemorate Children’s month. It is no coincidence that this day is in this month.

It is just a clear significance of the power and the role the male guardians should be playing in the lives of children. That as the world celebrates children it also takes time to look at the men who should be playing a support system to their futures not a suffocating system.  

It is unquestionable that ideally fathers should be providing a positive male role model for their children and help to promote/reinforce good behaviours. After all this is the first male figure that a child encounters and in an ideal set up, that a child spends the most time with than any other. They then tend to mirror the way this role model does things and therefore not only is this a parental role but also what in today’s terms we term as a mentor.

This is someone who has gone on that road before you, who has advice about the corner ahead and can tell you when to accelerate or when to slow down.
Someone who understands your fears and your strengths.

There can be no greater mentor or role model than a father, of course working in tandem with a mother they make for brightest futures of their children. As a result, children with more involved fathers tend to have fewer behavioural and impulse control problems, longer attention spans and a higher level of sociability.
These children also tend to be more compassionate and generous, with an increased awareness of the needs and rights of others.

As we look at celebrating Father’s Day one also honours the role of organisations like Kwakha Indvodza that are aimed at building and strengthening the role of males in Eswatini.

Kwakha Indvodza (meaning ‘building a man’) is Eswatini’s only male mentoring non-profit organisation. Described as a quickly growing NGO, KI specialises in community-led, health and behaviour change interventions with men and boys.

grooming of mentors

This is much needed for the grooming of mentor fathers of the future who are alive to their roles in society. By establishing community-based, youth-friendly safe spaces, KI offers young men a range of services including life skills training, counselling and health services.

Speaking at a Men’s Ministry gathering a few years ago, I noted how enormous the task of being a male and a leader is. I shared that being a male means that you need to be the leader of the household and always have the answers hence in olden day pictures depicting families the male would have his nose in a newspaper while the family would be busy with other tasks.

Once they were all done and gathered around for dinner and throwing questions at the father, he would most likely have answers because he would have nourished his knowledge through reading good reads like this Eswatini news power packed with various sections to answer any questions society may have.
But as KI notes, it goes beyond that.

Playing an effective role as a father means being a symbol of hope, courage and sanity for your family. It means constantly being on the front foot. It is not an easy task. And thankfully we have such support organisations and Google to help when all else fails.
I recall one time a friend’s friend lost his job. Yes a friend of a friend. He locked himself in his house for days and refused to come out because he felt that it would be embarrassing to be seen as jobless by society.

The friend who is my friend, hope you are following well, called in the one who lost his job. He said, “you are a man, you represent leadership to your family. Waking up and wearing a long face all day will kill the hopes and dreams of everyone under that roof.

You need to pick yourself up. Each morning wake up, bath, wear your best clothes and do some household tasks and be cheerful. Give them hope that despite your job loss you are not dead.” He encouraged him to stay positive until he gets his next income, and by staying positive he would be doing this for his children and wife not for himself only.

In the midst of the economic challenges we face, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, we need fathers who will provide hope and a fighting spirit to their children and household. We need more men who will reclaim their place in the household and drive growth and mentorship of their children to be the best version of themselves.

We need more present fathers. Yes self-help books are amazing but the best self-help book for a child is a present father.  American educator Reed Markham summed it up like this, “The quality of a father can be seen in the goals, dreams and aspirations he sets not only for himself, but for his family.” So let’s be those fathers.
Happy Father’s day in advance Eswatini.

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