Consider that what your children need is an authority figure not a buddy. Photo/FILE?
There are guys who ?catch pints? with their fathers. Yes, booze. They sit and drink like old chums. I know a guy who tells me that when he goes to ?shags? (that?s what the old school ones call the village) he has to show up with a bottle of something tucked under his arm ? a bottle which they later share under a mango tree as they jabber away about God-knows-what.
My father has never seen me hold a bottle of anything alcoholic, let alone see me drink from one (he sings in the church choir and you know how the choir feels about alcohol and its partakers). So I found this drinking-with-your-father phenomenon fresh and disturbing in equal measure.
I remain eternally curious as to how this son-father drinking arrangement works. What do you talk about when you sit down with your father over a tipple? Which topics are taboo, and which ones do you broach only when his eyes start getting droopy?
Is he better at dishing out sound advice when he is slightly smashed? Does he tell you family secrets, like who he has removed from his will, or where the bodies are buried (if he?s Mungiki or Chinkororo)?
Does he give you business ideas that he doesn?t have the strength, time or funds to see through? Do you talk about women, and does he, in the process, say something about your mother that either makes you think, ?Not Mom, come on,? or make you want to smash a bottle over his bald patch?
The only thing I am certain about is who gets to carry the seats back to the house after the drinking meet: you. This guy who drinks with his father says the best nuggets of wisdom, stuff that has informed his manhood, have always come from his father when they are drinking under that tree.
I like that. It?s what fatherhood should be. Unfortunately, it isn?t too common in my age group for one?s father to be a friend. It?s only now, when we are fathers ourselves, that they feel we deserve to eat from the same plate as them.
We ? the X-generation ? feel the need to treat fatherhood like a democratic process. We look back at the Spartan manner in which our fathers raised us and we want to do it differently. So we hug our children more (even our sons, my God).
We listen to them ? I mean really listen, not grunt and groan from behind a newspaper. We are ?sensitive? to their ?feelings? and, once in a while, we resort to ?Google Parenting? for stuff like ?how+ to+ punish+ 7yr old+ and + have + him + blame + mum+ for + it.?
This has blurred the line between our kids and us, which isn?t such a great thing all the time. Sometimes it?s necessary for the child to know that there is a supreme being who lives in that house; a being who will have his liver for dinner if he turns into a brat or plants marijuana in the back yard.
That said, fatherhood is subjective. There is no formula which promises a sound, well-adjusted kid.
Some of the children who had ?freedom? while we were growing up now roam about in a haze of drugs, and some who were not allowed to get in contact with the outside world got knocked up by the age of 19. It?s tricky.
I was watching one of those Dr James Dobson-like Internet streams where a balding Nigerian child psychologist was giving advice to fathers about disciplining a child, especially a girl.
I found it as helpful as scratching your beard with your toe; he recommended things like having your child write down what they feel. Annoying.
Discipline, like everything else, depends on how much your child can take before you scar them emotionally. Punishment shouldn?t be a debate; it shouldn?t fit the child?s personality.
It should be uncomfortable. And it should be fun for the parent, because if you don?t enjoy it, they might.
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