I was born in the 1960s, and looking back over the past 30–40 years, it’s remarkable how much fatherhood has changed. The role of a dad and the skills involved in parenting have evolved tremendously.
Fathers were the enforcer, during our childhood, we were terribly afraid of him as he has no qualms in using the cane. Those around him can only watch in silence and sometimes pain, and gives some protection if the message have clearly been conveyed.
Discipline wise, my dad has simple, 3 basic rules, no gambling, no smoking and no red ink in report card. Logic was simple, gambling led to crippling debts, smoking to drugs addiction and red ink meant your future is screwed! Life was still great and fun navigating around these 3 rules, it meant we were allowed to drink during festive season when he bought beers meant for adults and also time management was entirely up to us to plan and decide how much time and effort in our studies. Of course it set our mind on importance of education and point us in the right direction during secondary school where parental influence starts to wane. Apart from the drug addiction risk, on hindsight, it serves us well by not taking up smoking as some much of today’s illness and woes are related to smoking.
These 3 rules also meant that we have to learn to survive in the world by trial and error, and this made us more resilient and creative to solve problems. Parents nowadays are more likely to be protective and shield their children from the knocks and bruises of life, akin to helping a butterfly emerge from its sac to later find out that it need to struggle and squeeze fluid into its wings to fully transform into butterfly.
Thanks dad for letting us be from young age to find our way in this world but espousing important boundaries with your 3-basics rules which were firmly imposed. Together with mum and care by close relatives and friends, all your 4 sons made it successfully into this world. We adopted the same principles of rules and never pampers our children although in this modern society, we were able to demonstrate our love and care for them.
Quote from my god-mother “Love your children from your heart and never from your pampering actions”
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