(middle, The Tribune)
I read an interesting article by a friend on types of fathers. It made me think about fatherhood generally and specifically about us as parents. I remember when we were growing up, the sentence “I will tell your father” held a great significance and threat value – fathers were relatively more shadowy and so quite feared. Now, since fathers are in constant proximity to the children, almost as much as mothers, any mystery element is gone and the kids have them figured out completely. The children are fairly confident that fathers can be wound around their little fingers with perhaps greater ease than even the mother.
My husband finds fatherhood a very enjoyable and positive experience. There are however moments when I have found him feeling severely challenged….
.
He had once gone to a birthday party to pick up the kids who were there with their new nanny. The hostess told him to wait just a little till the khoi bag was over (a bag filled with sweets and small presents is broken at a height and children scramble to pick these). When the sweets were scattered, he found to his dismay that the nanny was also going enthusiastically after the prizes. He realized that being a new girl from the village she did not know that the game was only for the children. Embarrassed, he wanted to somehow tell our nanny to refrain but thought that calling out to her may draw further attention to him (the absolutely last thing he wanted ). So he did the next best thing- retreated as far away as possible so as not to be identified in any way with her or this occurrence. He has never been able to forget the pure horror of the moment when the nanny, spotting him far away, yelled out to him and advanced right up to him, triumphantly holding out her treasure trove of prizes. He wished the ground would open up before him! He has since been very adamant about not going for birthday parties as much as he can possibly help it.
We had taken the kids for a swim and it was time for them to come out of the pool. My son was being particularly recalcitrant about coming out of the water so my husband decided to be a little firm and told him that he had no option but to step out of the pool. His efforts were rewarded by a loud wailing on the part of my son and out of the blue the unfair verdict “you are the worst papa”! Everyone in the pool looked at my husband to see who had earned this title. He became beetroot red …..
We had taken the kids for a Dhrupad (it’s fairly serious, slow, timeless classical music) recital and they were reasonably lukewarm about this style of music. They were both fighting for the chair near me before the show and it was decided that it would be half and half time each. An hour later, my son decided that it was now his turn to sit next to me and asked my daughter to exchange places. She refused. Whereupon his face became set into the expression which comes on just before he is about to begin wailing loudly. I can never forget the look of pure terror on my husband’s face as he urgently took my arm and whispered “I think he’s about to cry!’. He had visions of our son’s loudly familiar wail drowning out the concert completely and thought that they both may well make it to the next day newspapers entertainment section, for the wrong reasons. I somehow managed to save the situation. Kapil never recovered fully - he is always very uneasy when taking the kids anywhere though they sit very nicely through most performances now and keeps searching the children’s faces for status checks during the programme.
My husband has reached the universal conclusion “there is never a dull moment….
I read an interesting article by a friend on types of fathers. It made me think about fatherhood generally and specifically about us as parents. I remember when we were growing up, the sentence “I will tell your father” held a great significance and threat value – fathers were relatively more shadowy and so quite feared. Now, since fathers are in constant proximity to the children, almost as much as mothers, any mystery element is gone and the kids have them figured out completely. The children are fairly confident that fathers can be wound around their little fingers with perhaps greater ease than even the mother.
My husband finds fatherhood a very enjoyable and positive experience. There are however moments when I have found him feeling severely challenged….
.
He had once gone to a birthday party to pick up the kids who were there with their new nanny. The hostess told him to wait just a little till the khoi bag was over (a bag filled with sweets and small presents is broken at a height and children scramble to pick these). When the sweets were scattered, he found to his dismay that the nanny was also going enthusiastically after the prizes. He realized that being a new girl from the village she did not know that the game was only for the children. Embarrassed, he wanted to somehow tell our nanny to refrain but thought that calling out to her may draw further attention to him (the absolutely last thing he wanted ). So he did the next best thing- retreated as far away as possible so as not to be identified in any way with her or this occurrence. He has never been able to forget the pure horror of the moment when the nanny, spotting him far away, yelled out to him and advanced right up to him, triumphantly holding out her treasure trove of prizes. He wished the ground would open up before him! He has since been very adamant about not going for birthday parties as much as he can possibly help it.
We had taken the kids for a swim and it was time for them to come out of the pool. My son was being particularly recalcitrant about coming out of the water so my husband decided to be a little firm and told him that he had no option but to step out of the pool. His efforts were rewarded by a loud wailing on the part of my son and out of the blue the unfair verdict “you are the worst papa”! Everyone in the pool looked at my husband to see who had earned this title. He became beetroot red …..
We had taken the kids for a Dhrupad (it’s fairly serious, slow, timeless classical music) recital and they were reasonably lukewarm about this style of music. They were both fighting for the chair near me before the show and it was decided that it would be half and half time each. An hour later, my son decided that it was now his turn to sit next to me and asked my daughter to exchange places. She refused. Whereupon his face became set into the expression which comes on just before he is about to begin wailing loudly. I can never forget the look of pure terror on my husband’s face as he urgently took my arm and whispered “I think he’s about to cry!’. He had visions of our son’s loudly familiar wail drowning out the concert completely and thought that they both may well make it to the next day newspapers entertainment section, for the wrong reasons. I somehow managed to save the situation. Kapil never recovered fully - he is always very uneasy when taking the kids anywhere though they sit very nicely through most performances now and keeps searching the children’s faces for status checks during the programme.
My husband has reached the universal conclusion “there is never a dull moment….
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