West Indian Daddyship

In my audacious opinion, West Indian fathers need an intervention. Obviously, reader, I don’t know all Caribbean fathers so before you go spouting off at the mouth, if I don’t know you, I cannot be referring to you, can I? I am writing about what I know. I know my father, quite well, in fact, I know him better than he realises. Maybe if he paid more attention to me personally, he would realise how similar we are. I can almost read him like a page. A lot of fathers seem to think that their children are just children, they are more observant than you think.. I have observed a few things about West Indian fathers; enough to compile this list:

A number of them refuse to affirm their children and recognise their talents and passions. Telling your daughter that she is good at singing will not make her a bad person. Back in the day, I know passions were probably not worth much but we live in a different age. In this age, a passion could make you a billionaire, a celebrity, a guru, an entrepreneur, an inventor…anything! One cannot simply dismiss a child’s passion as a hobby. Just getting to know your son and acknowledging his flair for electronics is so important to your relationship. Though you may not be able to secure a job for him or send him to college, he will forever appreciate that day when you told him that he was talented.

I observe that there is a lack of planning for children and I don’t mean family planning, I know that fathers cannot undo the past but it is essential to have a strategy when it comes to fatherhood. It is not only impractical to go around fathering children, it is irresponsible and immature. Some fathers believe that they were the only ones meant to populate the earth. It is as simple as this, if you know that you are not financially or mentally capable of having four children, use your head and let good judgement prevail. On the other hand, what’s done is done but don’t let your children suffer because you didn’t plan for them. Your lack of planning shouldn’t show.

Additionally, I notice that Caribbean fathers can be very selfish. They have this impressive way of caring more about themselves more than their own children. Everybody knows that children didn’t ask to be born, so a child cannot be left behind because you need to upgrade your phone. Oh and children will understand that sometimes daddy doesn’t have but they would be foolish if they believed that daddy never has. Never? Really?

One cannot blame me for noticing that some fathers just don’t care. How can it be so easy for you to walk away from your children and return after 20-odd years with smiles and no shame? Don’t tell me it doesn’t happen either, just in the last six months, I have seen it at least three times. What do you expect when you return? As far as I’m concerned, if you return and your children are living under a bridge and begging in the streets, you should have no comment and you should even sit with them under the bridge and catch up. In two of those instances, the fathers only returned to renew their passports. All I can do is shake my head. It cannot be normal when fathers are finding it so easy to forget their sons and to carry on fathering children all over the country. People are discovering siblings whom they didn’t even know existed. I’m still shaking my head. I have heard more than one girl say that her father doesn’t even know how she survives, what she eats, what kind of person she is, how she thinks. Those are girls who may someday have children of their own. What if those girls turn out twisted and careless? Future generations are depending on them just like how they depended on their fathers to set good examples for them. So take a moment now and think about those “well-known” girls who settle for men that abuse them and disrespect them at every opportunity; who have two children and one on the way; who looks like they have never covered their legs, backs, breasts and waists simultaneously; who probably never had jobs in their lives. Maybe if her father, had taken some time to hold conversations with her and treated her like she had worth, like she was somebody to be treasured and somebody to be desired, maybe she would have had a better start. Note, she can still have a bright end, but her father was responsible for her start.

Parallel to what I observe, the West Indian daddyship disease very often produces brilliant children: future parents who are responsible, mature and selfless. The absence of those fathers, whether physical or emotional leaves those children with the freedom which they could use to be themselves and develop traits contrary to what their fathers would have demonstrated.

Nevertheless readers, many of our fathers are doing so well and making us so proud, doing everything necessary to raise their children properly. I think West Indian fathers deserve the thanks for that, because of the way those sons grew up, they determined within themselves to be the opposite of their own fathers.

I don’t need to say that West Indian women are both mothers and fathers, it’s almost cliché now. Count the number of times, you have heard somebody say that they would do anything for their mother but their father could drop dead. It is not a battle of the sexes in this case but if it were…
Do It Or Else 
To Deliver or Not to Deliver