Fathers though! Lol

Most fathers are very predictable when it comes to their dealings with members of their households. Because God has made it that the father is the head of his individual family, fathers have turned themselves into some sort of demigods and lie to themselves by choosing alter egos that depict the personality they never were when they were our age as teenagers.

Shocking enough, we their children end up collaborating these fallacies of our fathers. Yes! I enjoy reading those revealing tributes we pen for our fathers/mothers when they are no more in their burial programme. That is where we allow this fallacy to fester. Because every father impresses it on his children that ‘in his time’, he always comes first in everything he does, it remains etched in our minds that ‘my father is the best’ in all that he does. Now, I keep wondering where the sluggards and wasted fathers come in the picture of being the best in his time. Yikes!

In Nigeria today, once your father is able to see you through the basic educational levels in life, he is already ‘tops’ in his class. Heaven help you when you hardly impress your father academically. You even stand the disgraceful chance of eternally appearing condemned like a criminal in his eye and may end up with this threat of not being his. Your poor dear mother would come to your rescue to save the day and save you from the looming mental torture your ‘coconut-headed’ father has condemned you to. Has your mother ever told you that you took after your father academically while you face the challenges of feeling the pulse of what schooling and academic exploits are all about? Then you are among the lucky few who stand the chance of being psychologically prepared that when tomorrow comes, you still stand the chance of making better academic results than your father ever did. He only wanted you to save him the mental torture he faced when he was your age as an unintelligent young man. Your report card reminds him of who he used to be or has been and no father needs their children to remind them of who they once were.

Most fathers are simply delusional and use a different ball game as a measure and yardstick in examining their assumed achievements against ours when they were our age.  

In academics, in sprinting (sports), and in other outstanding activities, my father would always tell me he is ‘number one’. Did your father also tell you such tales? Don’t tell me your daddy-dearest is in this bandwagon of ‘best daddies’ in all that they do mentality? Like seriously? Yours is into this ego-trip? Oops! Fathers! They are all the same!

Truth be told, my father is an intelligent man and good in all that he sets his mind to accomplish. There is no doubt about his academic intelligence. I have asked his mates pertinent questions that bother on the motive behind this write-up about him, and they made me not to lose faith in his claims. My father participated actively during the Nigerian internecine war with her Biafran brethren between 1967 and 1970. What a colossal blood-spilling strife! I ran into a retired Professor who attended the same primary school  with my father at the famous Enu-ogwugwu Primary School, Ojoto in the 50’s and he owned up to the fact that my father always came first before him. Then in my impressionable mind, I wondered why my father’s challenge – the retired professor – ended up a professor while my father ended up a teacher.

Life has a tool that it uses to separate us from whatever we feel we are in this life and this is called FATE. Its grasp is cast in tough chains and buried inside a land of iron and steel. No matter your goal in life, only fate will decide what becomes of you at the end – don’t forget grace from above as a formidable umbrella in your life here please.

Therefore, now that I’ve become a father too, I’m very mindful of what ‘claims’ of my in-my-days braggadocio that I share with my offspring to avoid bringing shame on my head when tomorrow comes.

Fatherhood tells a lot of lies still!