On the third Sunday of June every year, Father’s Day is held. It is a celebration in acknowledgement of fathers and fatherhood: paternal ties and also paternal influence in society is honoured on this day.

Last week, I found myself once again in the predicament of every student – if not every student all of the time, at least all students some of the time and some students all of the time have experienced this situation: I was completely flat broke. I had not a cent to my name. Not  one. Sitting in my bed one morning, I contemplated my situation from behind a fog of bronchitis and a stuffy nose. As soon as I had sat up, I sunk back down. With the sparse resources in my account, I couldn’t even replace my lost bank card and start my day! I didn’t even feel confident of my ability to navigate the treacherous path down to the pharmacy to medicate my blues away. Despondent, I logged onto Facebook. When I saw the screen, my day brightened significantly. My dad was online! Now, I had already burned financial ‘favour’-bridges with my mom – after buying a sewing machine with all my pocket money in January and asking her for small subsidies to tide me by for the rest of the month, she had soured considerably to the idea of lending me any money. My father, on the other hand, lends favours in the form of delicious farm produce, travel costs and some pocket money – would he be able to free me from my predicament? He agreed to see what he could do, and a few hours later I had a new bankcard and medicine and was enjoying the brilliant sunshine outside. Suddenly, I recalled a saying that said that fathers were people with pictures in their wallets where their money used to be. I understood it.

Fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers…

On the third Sunday of June every year, Father’s Day is held. It is a celebration in acknowledgement of fathers and fatherhood: paternal ties and also paternal influence in society is honoured on this day. Soap-on-a-Rope, coffee mugs with funny golfing quips, aftershave and billion-year-old bottles of Whiskey line shopping mall shelves and we treat our fathers, grandfathers and even great-grandfathers to delicious meals and gifts.

Fatherless society?

There is an international movement dedicated to raising awareness regarding the role of fathers and male family figures in the very fabric of society – from the family front right through to economic and socio-political structures. www.Fathers.co.za, for example, is a non-profit organisation for research and education into the role of responsible fatherhood by “equipping men to be more engaged in the lives of children”. Among a myriad of articles on fatherhood and parenting on the website, there are many claiming that families need fathers to become functioning societal units: Jason DeParle emphasizes the lack of this key ingredient in urban households and the effect the subsequent lack of income, affection and discipline on families and wider society.

Fathering the world

The role of fathers in families as well as in broader society should not be underestimated. “My dad is amazing,” says Robyn Kirk. “He's the kindest person I know, and at the same time one of the strongest people too,” she says. “He would do anything for his family: work all day every day to provide for us and spend his nights helping us with our maths homework.” It seems that what is needed, and what should be celebrated this month, is responsible fatherhood – a bond that is meaningful and entails respect, understanding and dedication.

To fathers out there, viva!

My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard.  Mother would come out and say, "You're tearing up the grass."  "We're not raising grass," Dad would reply.  "We're raising boys." – Harmon Killebrew

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