Given the months I've been MIA, I would like to return with a post that’s very much needed in our mental health journey. My blog focuses on African issues and relationships. It's my background and heritage, and, consequently, the culture I understand and can write best about. It's my personal experience that is shockingly similar to many friends and family I've interacted with. Some of the lessons I learned may not apply to you, and that's okay. My only hope is they give you some perspective to heal and be a better you.
To know your future you must know your past
Today's article is a heavy one for me. My father is my hero. He's my motivation. When I imagine the kind of person I want to be, I often picture him. Or a version of him. But see, my father is also the scariest boogie man that has haunted me all my life. Not just me. My brother too, I believe. My mother. He's the firm hand that has made tough decisions for our family, and almost always, failed to include us in his decision-making. He'll come home and we, the children, will run to our rooms, literally. My mother will retreat to the kitchen to prepare dinner for him, and serve it to him at the table. They'll watch the news, often in silence, but sometimes talking in my mother tongue. I've only just started to understand a few words in my mother tongue, but back then, I had no idea what they were speaking about.
See, fathers have the most significant impact on our lives, or childhood trauma as it were. It can be trickier when your father is your hero and villain at the same time. I must stress that my father is the best. He has provided for us in extenuating circumstances. We've faced a lot of hardships. He himself has met a lot of hardships. His father passed away in high school. His mother committed suicide in his adulthood, in his fatherhood. What is a father meant to tell his children when his mother commits suicide? What is he to tell his wife? My mother tells me that my father did not call her on that day like she assumed she would. For comfort. To rant. It got me thinking who my father talked to at such a sensitive time in his life. Certainly not his underage kids.
That's my father, though. He deals with problems on his own. He finds ways to solve them before we know they exist. You'll find him sitting in the living room deep in thought or crunching numbers. You'll go about your day, calm as day, because you know he'll come through. Because you know all will be well. When I had a psychotic break not too long ago, I did not fear for my life when my father came to my rescue. I knew he would handle things. He would find the right hospital for me. He would take care of me. There are so many things that my father has done that I can hardly exhaust here. Out of, and note this, duty. Responsibility.
The invisible load of fatherhood
Fathers in our society are brought up to take care of their own. Even today, in our modern relationships, getting a boyfriend often means having someone else to take care of you. To help you pay your bills. To help you navigate life. Again, these things may not apply to everyone, but they're my observations so far about how our society works. They've helped me understand the relationship between my father and me too. I've struggled so much with these things, especially because, if you've met my father, you'll cower before him. He's not God or anything, no. He's hard to describe, actually. His personality. So far, I've only told you about what he's done. But who is he?
If you feel like you have childhood trauma to work through, I believe this is one of the most important questions to ask yourself. Who is your father, as a person, as a human being? My father is scary, I will say that. He commands the room. Yes, even among peers, among friends, you'll hear my father's voice is the loudest. I don't mean in the empty vessels kind of way either. People hang to his every word. People laugh at his jokes, which I can confirm, are indeed funny. People listen to him. They look up to him. And rightly so. My father is a high school principal. A church elder. He's a leader. How can anyone not see him as a person to learn a thing or two from?
I will also say that my father's emotional intelligence is wanting. Among friends, for example, an emotionally intelligent person will not want to dominate a conversation. Among family, an emotionally intelligent person will not want to induce fear. Now, the latter is a little tricky, because of the way our fathers have been brought up, and the way our culture is structured, fathers, men, are made out to be feared. The society we're moving to, however, is trying to change that to respect. There's a difference between fear and respect. If you fear someone, you will do everything they say. You will listen to everything they say. You will live to please them, so their wrath doesn't come down on you, so to speak. If you respect someone, however, you will listen to them, yes, but only take away what you believe to be right. You may also confront the person if you feel what they say is wrong.
Standing your ground with your father
See, my brother in his adulthood, realized this. So, one day, he tells my father, no, this is how I see it. You're wrong. I'm right. Words to that effect. I was proud of him because I could never. Even as I write this, I do not "talk back" to my father. I do not tell him if he's wrong. I pretend like I'm listening and then go and do what I believe is right. I mean, that's if the command has come directly from him. As an adult, I do have the freedom to do anything I want. But when it comes to my father telling me to do something, I will, most likely, do it.
Circling back to my brother and father. During one conversation of my brother correcting my father, a heated conversation where both of their voices were beginning to hit the roof, suddenly my father got up and plummeted blows into my brother's face. Mind you, I am listening from my bedroom, yes, our house has the thinnest walls, and I freak out. To this day, that memory is sketched in my brain painting my father as my boogie man. How could he do that to my brother? Poor soul. My brother stormed out of the house. Later, my father apologised to my brother. Oh. My mother was within earshot distance, too, but never said anything about the matter to my knowledge, but the topic between daughter and mother is for another day.
See, my father has never laid a hand on us in our prime years. We sure did get our fair share of beatings when we got up to mischief as children. And I must admit, I barely look to those days as memories forever scorched in my soul. On the fateful day my father beat my brother in his grown age, though, something in me shifted. I could feel something in my father shift too. To hear your son raise his voice at you can be terrifying for a father. And so, I believe in that instance, my father reacted to fear. He held a phone call with I'm not sure who, telling him how sorry he felt. He said how he's already gone and apologised profusely to my brother. He said how they're now on good terms. And true to his word, my father and brother are on good terms now.
Respect versus fear
But let's circle back. As much as I fear my father, and I am working toward a path to respect him instead of fear him, I learned that my father can be afraid too. I think we grow up thinking of our fathers as superheroes. We don't want to imagine that they can do any wrong. We want them to always be our Knights in shining armour. And when they stray away from these things, even for a little while, those events scorch deep within us, it takes a lot of time to heal. By healing I mean, taking a step back to ask yourself, who is your father as a person? At the end of the day, we need to get to a place where we start to see our fathers as a person who can do wrong just as much as they can do right. That, I believe, is the first step to escaping the trauma between daughter and father. Between child and father.
Also, our society is deeply flawed in the way fathers raise their children. I read a post where a father was asking his grown-up children why they ran from him when he came to the living room to watch TV. The children responded with all sorts of answers, but the lesson here was that fathers do want to watch TV with you. Of course, they will probably remain in control of the remote for most of the time. Hey, traditions take a lot of time to change. Our society will take time and effort to become better.
For now, though, I believe your father wants to hear from you. Mine does, did I say? He often calls me. Sure, some questions he asks me feel like a test. And, sure, some of my answers are met with a lecture. Step by step, child. From your end and your father's end. Recently, we started to communicate via WhatsApp with my dad. And I don't mean casual conversation, but really talking about the deep stuff we otherwise feel difficult to talk about in person.
My father has opened up to me about his mother's unfortunate passing, for example. He's told me that he's sorry that I feel like he wasn't a good father. And I corrected him saying, he was perfect. Sure enough, he told me about how much sacrifice he made to give us a good life. How he even took care of me as a baby. And I remember my friend and I going, but that's his responsibility, to take care of me.
But, now, I realize that if that's true, and if my father has been brought up to think of responsibility as a show of love, who am I to think of his fatherhood as anything but a job well done? My father loves me. I believe your father does too. He may not show it exactly how you want. But, love can be taught. It's not easy. I am still learning to communicate how I feel to my father while showing him the respect he deserves. I pray you will also get to a place of healing in your relationship with your father in due time. Don't rush the process at all. It'll take time and effort, but make no mistake, fully healing is an entirely possible thing to achieve.
Whew! Quite a lot to unpack there, ey? The good news is you've started to chip away at the difficult conversations you need to have with yourself, and father. But, do take a breather with our Bored in the House? Here are 6 Best Films to Make You Smile article, too, and let us know if you have any questions or concerns.