By Rev Innmocent Osuoha
According to investigations, Father’s Day was founded in Spokane Washington, United States in 1910 by Sonora Smart Dodd at a YoungMens Christian Association (YCMA) forum. It was first celebrated in Spokane YCMA in United States on the 9th day of June, 1910. Since 1910, Fathers Day celebration had undergone many legislative processes until in 1966 when President Lydon Johnson of America issued the first Presidential proclamation honouring fathers and designated the third Sunday in June as Fathers Day. Six years later in 1972, the day was made a permanent national holiday as President Richard Nixon signed it into law.
Of recent, Father’s Day celebration has become a celebration to honour fathers as well as celebrate fatherhood, paternal bonds and the influence of fathers in our society.
Although, there’s no uniformed date for this great celebration in Nigeria, churches do it at dates convenient to their environment but one thing remains clear about Father’s Day it has become a day complementing Mothers Day and Motherhood.
Now, with all the fanfare which goes along with Father’s Day celebration, one question everyone is asking is, “who is a model father and what are his responsibilities?” The answer is not farfetched.
Fatherhood is a very big responsibility but it is also a lot of fun. A father should always show the children, in fact the entire family, that he enjoys being their father. For instance, some fathers miss opportunities to spend time with their kids because they have competing responsibilities or interest and once the opportunity has passed, its gone and cannot be gotten back.
A model father must establish intimacy with his children when they are young otherwise it would be difficult to catch up when they are older and still need help and support.
We should be teachers by both words and examples because children need to be taught right from wrong and will need to see it demonstrated by us. A father should be bold enough to make decisions in front of the family and then explain to them why he came to that resolution. Even a step could be taken further to tell them about the choices made in the past and why they did or did not work out.
We should evaluate all our own decisions by thinking, within, what we would expect our children to do in similar circumstances. Teach the children that it is okay to make mistakes and that any person makes them. The important thing is to learn from our mistakes and try to avoid making the same over and over again.
It is the responsibility of a model father to show affection as a way of telling them that you love them just as it also teaches them to show affection to others.
A father should respect the children’s mother since children mimic a lot especially their parent’s behavior. It is believed that respect is reciprocal, therefore the way we treat our child’s mother will influence the way in which the child will view his or her own role when they become parents. We should make parenting a partnership affair and know when to discipline or reward our children consistently.
We should not place unreasonable expectations on ourselves and our children while realizing that a fathers job is never done. We should not assume that once our children turn 21 or have a degree that our work is done, no! In as much as it is important to encourage our children to become financially and emotionally independent, it is also important to let them know that we care and are always there for them and that they are valued.
Granted that challenges faced by Nigerian fathers have left them in pitiable and criminal conditions, fathers should not be tempted. For instance in May 2012 in Agbado area of Lagos state, a man was arrested by security agents for allegedly selling his day-old baby to a business woman for N350,000 such an action would be regarded as not worthy of a fatherly role no matter the prevailing socio-economic situation.
All put together, father’s day should be a day when the relevance of fatherhood and paternal bond of the man, known as the pillar of the family is well appreciated by both wife and children.
Father’s Day In the real sense s a day when the children and other family members extend their love and appreciation to the father for all that he had done to make the family a happy and united body. It could be done through organizing a small party for the father or take him out for a picnic, cinema or other places of excitement. It could be in form of a gift that the father would appreciate.
A father could be appreciated by a simple greeting card that could say, “I love you dad” or even in these days of technology, give a father a shout out. Finally, a caring wife or mother should extraordinarily pamper a father on Father’s Day but earnestly speaking, the children should be at the forefront of appreciating the father on a father’s day because they are the real beneficiaries of the good father-mother relationship which the father has the key.
