Fathers must live up to their responsibilities

Yesterday June 19 marked yet another opportunity to look at the important role of fathers in society.

It was Father’s Day, the day on which fathers are particularly honoured by their children. It was first observed in the State of Washington in the United States of America in 1910, South Africa and Britain.

The day is usually marked on the third Sunday in June but it is celebrated on the first Sunday in September in Australia.

Father’s Day and its counterpart, Mother’s Day, have been accepted worldwide as days to focus on the important roles played by mothers and fathers in the home.

But unlike Mother’s Day, which has increased in popularity, with a host of programmes held each year to celebrate mothers, Father’s Day has been very low key, with some people even calling for the scrapping of the day with the claim that fathers do not have to be celebrated.

They have referred to the growing incidence of child neglect by males who have fathered children, especially when they fall out with the women they impregnated or claimed they were in love with before the pregnancy.

However, Father’s Day this year received a boost and people actually celebrated their biological fathers, as well as the father figures in their lives. 

That notwithstanding, the Daily Graphic urges fathers to own up to their God-given responsibility of taking care of their children and their homes. When fathers shirk their responsibilities, society is plagued with many challenges.

These include streetism, a high school dropout rate, gangsterism, thuggery, armed robbery, unemployment, prostitution, the engagement of children in very dangerous work such as fishing, child trafficking, among a host of societal headaches.

The Daily Graphic posits that even if marriages and relationships break up or get sour, it is the duty of fathers to cater for their children because it is the children’s right to be catered for, as they did not ask to be born.

Fathers must provide direction for their growing children, as well as see to their upkeep and provide their emotional needs, especially when they are girls.

Male children also need their fathers to look up to or seek to become like them. They need fathers to challenge them to study and aspire to greater heights and not to settle for mediocrity.

Fathers inculcate in their children a sense of responsibility as they grow up; they ensure discipline among their children and order in the home when the children are around.

It is the reason family set-ups cease to function and there is only chaos when there are no fathers.

Society will be the richer, if fathers rise up to their responsibility of taking charge of their homes and raising responsible and focused children.

While we urge men who put women in the family way to do well to cater for the children who are born as a result of the union, no matter the circumstances, we also urge the government to put in appropriate measures to compel men who get women pregnant to be forced by law to cater for the children until they reach adulthood.

We expect fathers to be more responsible, and for those responsible fathers, we join the entire world in wishing them a Happy Father’s Day, albeit belatedly.