We recently celebrated Father’s Day, but what does being a good father or an enabling male mentor mean? Perhaps Aunty Soak Koon is not the best person to answer this question since my own father was absent for much of my childhood and even into my adult years. We all made peace with him before he passed away, but his absence must have left marks on his three children, each in a different way – for every child is unique, even when siblings share commonalities.
Umberto Eco, the Italian philosopher and medievalist, tells us: “What we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments when they aren’t trying to teach us.” His words suggest that fathers – without being aware, without formal homilies or ‘lectures’ – can teach in those odd moments when they are paradoxically at their quiet best. In Harper Lee’s portrayal of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, a quiet, deep-thinking father is well delineated. As his young daughter, Scout observes her father Finch did not do things like other dads who loved hunting, fishing, smoking and playing poker.
Finch invites us to re-examine fixed, established traditional gender roles. In many cultures, Eastern or Western, men are expected to be strong physically and emotionally (never to show fear), to be commanding and authoritative, and to enjoy traditionally accepted male hobbies. The recognition of a clear yin-yang duality, of masculine and feminine, was firmly rooted in Chinese history. Similarly, Western cultures mandated defined gender roles historically. Even today, in some Western countries where there is a resurgence of political conservatism, gender roles are policed.
Yet if we scrutinise the past carefully, we discover that androgyny was accepted in certain spheres of life. Men took on the role of the ‘fah tan’ or female heroine in Peking opera, and on the Shakespearean stage, men acted as women. In a few of his plays, the Bard uses a blurring of gender roles to enrich his exploration of the human condition. The legendary woman warrior Hua Mu Lan defends the kingdom valiantly, perhaps better than a male general. In the romantic tale of Leong San Park and Chook Ying Toi, the woman scholar Ying Toi disguises herself as a man to further an education denied to women.
In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf makes a case for the rich contribution of the androgynous mind to creativity, to a flowering of the mind that embraces life’s diverse nuances, shades and hues. Then why do many societies still police gender identities rigidly? Perhaps people fear men becoming totally effeminate and women losing every drop of gentleness? This is an extremist’s conclusion from someone who is paradoxically boxing himself or herself into a room with no view. I sympathise with those men who have not lost their masculinity one bit but who feel the call of the so-called softer ‘feminine’ values. Go for it. Don’t worry, you won’t be a lesser man. You will not lose one iota, cell or atom of your masculinity. Quite the contrary, you will be a richer, fuller human being.
- Sign up for Aliran's free daily email updates or weekly newsletters or both
- Make a one-off donation to Persatuan Aliran Kesedaran Negara (ALIRAN), Maybank a/c 507246118995 or CIMB a/c 8004240948
- Make a pledge or schedule an auto donation to Aliran every month or every quarter
- Become an Aliran member
Today, many fathers take on parenting roles, especially when a newborn requires the nurturance of both parents. Paid childcare is expensive and reliable childcare is near impossible to find. Public policies such as paternity leave can assist fathers in caring for newborn babies, and this paid leave should be extended beyond seven days. Post-natal blues among women have long been recognised but how many of us recognise the anxiety and worry a man may have after a baby is born? Jubilation mixed with concern about economic demands may keep dads as well as mums awake after night feeds. We all know how expensive it is to bring up a child.
In Malaysia, some NGOs do provide assistance, often giving men a safe space to voice their thoughts and feelings. Men who are single parents do need encouragement and advice. In the unpredictable seasons of life, both men and women can face sudden loneliness, as when a spouse dies. Caring spaces where confidentiality is as sacred as a covenant may offer quietly grieving men relief if they choose to use such opportunities.
Speaking out our feelings is hard for all, men and women alike, yet at the cost of being accused of gendered thinking, I feel it is harder for men. Could it be due to the way most men are brought up to be taciturn, reticent and private?
When men get together, do they prefer to talk about politics, economics or football matches rather than love and loss? To bare their souls may make them most vulnerable in a highly competitive, dog-eat-dog world where one has to act as if one was a fierce, fearless hound. Sadly, this reticence can sometimes spill over from work life to home life.
To spend time listening and talking to wives, sons and daughters yields rewards of deeper empathy. If we do not hide our failures from our children, must it inevitably mean loss of respect from our children or erosion of their sense of security? Not at all, if fathers do reveal how setbacks strengthen resolve, birth resilience, determination and hope. In this way, we tell our children that there is no silver bullet to solve all ills. Sometimes one has to bite the bullet.
In an increasingly materialistic world where power shouts loudly, it is incumbent on fathers to discuss with sons timeless values like compassion, giving them a guiding moral compass. In a rapidly polarised world, we need to advise our children about inclusivity. “We need to be reminded of our shared humanity,” says the writer Viet Thanh Nguyen, adding that “we need to learn lessons from the past and we need a new generation of people equipped to speak truth to power”. All great religions advocate for justice, equity and fairness. Unfortunately, IT and technological devices are so insidiously integrated into our lives today that we often do not care that some tech companies prioritise profit over people, dollars over decency.
Lucrative, money-making careers are drummed into children’s ears today. Nothing wrong with this if money is balanced by magnanimity in the ‘account sheet’ of being human. What if a son tells a father that he will not join the family business which took the father and grandfather their entire lives to build? I hope there will be no shouting, ranting and raving. Perhaps fathers need to accept that a son is not an exact replica of his father. An individual, male or female, has the right to choose his or her own path. Guide them, not force them. Even melodramatic Hong Kong soap operas teach us the disastrous results of patriarchal, coercive control.
It may take a whole village to bring up a child, male or female, so the saying goes. Male mentors can help guide, encourage and nurture the young if dads are unable to. In my long years of teaching, I have noted sadly the effects an absent father can have on children, sons in particular. “I always lack confidence when asked to do new things,” one young man tells me, “and I keep comparing my own renegade dad to other responsible fathers.” How well I can empathise, except that in my case, I may have over-compensated by defensive arrogance, a formidable exterior that hides uncertainty. Now I can smile and laugh over that lack of a dad with whom I made peace before he passed away. While growing up, it was no laughing matter and I must thank those male mentors who walked alongside without asking anything in return.
My absent father must have had his own demons to battle while he was growing up. Don’t we aIl? I have no right to condemn him at all. I am very grateful for God’s grace that I choose to remember my father’s kindness, those moments when he rose above his wrong choices. When I was in Standard 6, at 12 years old, I underwent an orthopaedic operation for my polio leg. My father came back to help carry me up the rickety stairs of our house. He bought a small packet of fruits for a lonely young girl my age in the same ward who had no visitors.
I have written more about sons and fathers in the paragraphs above and it is fitting that I end by inviting interested readers to contemplate two poems by fathers for their daughters. After the tragic death of his infant daughter, Maria, Malaysian poet Salleh Ben Joned writes:
Joy means your name Ria
in the tongue of your blood,
a tongue I must learn again
to sing the mystery of our pain….
Be with me my Ria
In the sheer light
Of my old sun
There is something deeply, resonantly poignant in this memorial poem, something tender in its regret and mournfulness. It calls up what in bahasa (Malay) we term dukalara, a word almost impossible to translate.
WB Yeats wrote Prayer For My Daughter at a turbulent time in Irish history. His use of storm imagery captures that turbulence:
Once more the storm is howling and half-hid
Under this cradle hood and and coverlid
My child sleeps on
Outside the wind screams upon a tower and roars through elm trees above a flooded stream; inside the father prays over his infant daughter. In a volatile world, what would her future be like? Yeats prays that his daughter will retain courtesy, “a glad kindness”, an ability to transcend self-love and vanity.
Mesmerising as this poem may be, it bothers me that Yeats also prays that his child will not be too deep-thinking, too philosophical. Strange that Yeats himself, who is reflective and thoughtful, should harken back to a Victorian trope that women must be careful not to appear too intelligent. Perhaps this poem was written after poor Yeats met a few very philosophical women who were active in the Irish cause who did not return his affection, thus leaving him lovelorn. I shall not hold this lapse against Yeats when he has written so much that promotes justice for all.
Yeats warns against hatred, reminding us that:
If there is no hatred in a mind
Assault and battery of the wind
Can never tear the linnet from the leaf.
All of us – fathers, mothers, male and female mentors – should unite to guide youths to use time, thought and even technology in order to be better human beings so that together, both older folk and young people will renew their commitment to compassion, justice, inclusivity and empathy in today’s volatile, violent world. I refer once again to Atticus Finch, whom I mentioned earlier, when he says we need to walk a mile or two in someone else’s shoes if we are to understand that person. Are we willing and ready?
AGENDA RAKYAT - Lima perkara utama
- Tegakkan maruah serta kualiti kehidupan rakyat
- Galakkan pembangunan saksama, lestari serta tangani krisis alam sekitar
- Raikan kerencaman dan keterangkuman
- Selamatkan demokrasi dan angkatkan keluhuran undang-undang
- Lawan rasuah dan kronisme
