Reader’s Choice # - Father-son: the less spoken about relationship- Part 1

Reader’s Choice # Part 1

Father-son: the less spoken about relationship

P.S. This is not a gender based write-up. Name of the person on whose request this has been written is strictly confidential. It's a lengthy write up for a blog hence, it is divided into 2 parts. 

 

Father! a person who readies the child for the world, who is generally busy in working to provide a comfortable life for his family. A figure who spends most of his time working out of the comforts of home while his wife looks after their house and family. The relation between father and son is multifaceted and multi dimensional. There is a popular saying, “By the time, I realized my father is right, I have a son who thinks I am wrong.” One realizes the depth of this as one attains maturity. If one goes down the pages of history, one can find innumerable stories about mother’s love, but there are very few about father’s love.

Men are not expressive by nature. The actions like hug, embrace or kiss are in dictionary of only a handful few. The heart yearns to embrace the son, but some unseen force, stops them from doing so. This can be attributed to their upbringing. Normally, a child rushes in arms of the mother, very rarely of father. If one gets hurts, the first exclamation is of mother’s name. Men being outdoor personality and providers are made to believe they are strong and infallible, whereas on the other hand, woman who are nurtures and care givers are thought to be kind hearted. This has lot to do with their single hormone which governs their masculinity. Women are governed by two hormones which make them vulnerable.

A father often sees his younger self in his son. In order to prevent his son from doing the mistakes which he did in his younger days, a father tends to be more assertive and tries to dictate his son. He fails to remember that though his son is chip of the old block, he is an individual too. The son’s primal need to be recognized and accepted as an individual, if not fulfilled, leads to many tiny areas of conflict.  

My Popsie says (in context of father),” One needs to understand that, while narrating incidents which happened twenty or thirty years ago, one should ponder, do they hold any relevance in the current scenario? Are they in any way beneficial to his children? Do remember, the times, the circumstances were entirely different from what your children’s generation is facing now. ” If one tends to see things in this perspective, there will be less communication errors with the next generation. Another point my Popsie advocates is ," Be a listener. Let your child complete what he/she wants to share. Do not interrupt or be in a hurry to answer. The child should feel at ease while talking to his father. Learn to listen patiently. Don't listen to answer."

Sharing a cute incident, which happened few years ago. I took my little monk (my son) to the doctor's clinic for an injection. The nurse casually remarked, “Don’t even think of crying, men are numb to pain (mard ko dard nahin hota).’’ My monk embraced me and said, “Mom, I am afraid and I do feel pain. Is it something to worry about?’’ I hugged him and said to ignore these baseless talks. As humans, one tends to feel pain as it is nerve related. It’s time we stop labeling man as strong and woman as weak. A child should be brought up like a child and not as son or daughter. Once, this change happens within us and around us. Gradually, we will hear more of father son stories too. 

Hope you elevate your relationship to the highest level.

To be continued as Part 2...

Love,

Juju.