Do Dad's Get Scared ? | 2011

Do dads get scared?


Anybody who answers "no" to this question is either lying or is someone who has never been a father before. We have always been given the notion, the belief, that fathers are fearless, authoritative pillars of the home. That they have to be this super hero figure and be invincible.


We do try to uphold that from time to time. After all, children need to have a father figure. And a father is as unique as a mother in that while they appear to be doing similar things for their children, they are actually doing it in different ways.


But behind the statuette image of the brave and strong father, it is still a fact that fathers are human too. Mothers are all too easy to understand when they show their emotions to their children. They can openly cry, smile, get excited, give hugs, kiss on the cheeks, and all the other maternal things. Fathers don't do that. And if they do, they don't do it often or openly. Somehow, society has already declared this as the norm.


So yeah, dads do get scared. We are not supermen, but we want our families to believe that we are. We also cry. We also smile. We also express ourselves to our loved ones. And we have our fears as well. 

I know I do. The most significant of which (for me at least) is a look at the future, you know, when Jakjak is all grown up. I wonder what he would be saying about his childhood. I wonder what he would be saying about his dad. I wonder how he will take on the role of fatherhood in his own time. I hope, that when the time comes, I would get to hear him say "Thanks Dad, you did a good job". And that's all there is to it.

Holidays and Heydeys | 2011

With Jakjak now going to pre-school, it seems that family days have become more of a planned day rather than a spontaneous one. Only a year ago, all the holidays that I had to worry about was mine. Recently, school holidays have become more and more part of the plan (most of the time, it is the plan) and our days have to be scheduled around that. It's easy to say to just steal a day or two from our daily life, but reality is not always that kind, nor that giving. So it becomes a mixture of decisions on which days give in and which do not.

Funny though, just last year we were thinking about how much time we could have to ourselves once Jakjak starts schooling. As it turns out, it's not really that much. In fact, without the free spontaneousness of those free days, it has become a chore. But all is not lost. Of course there are opportunities that we grab in order to keep things as less strenuous as we can. In fact, our daily mis-adventures have not changed much, if it has changed at all.


I believe that one of the most important things that a parent can (and should) give their child at this stage in both their lives, is time. Not just quality time, but the quantity of time as well. We have to admit it, in today's fast paced life, the old adage "quality time is more important than quantity of time" no longer applies. You cannot give quality time if you did not have the quantity of time in the first place. So this is, again, about balance. Life and time do not turn back. It is up to us to make the most of them.