There is an ancient Chinese saying- “My mother taught me how to live while my father equipped me for it.” I always wondered what this actually meant. Did it mean that the mother teaches us the principles of how to lead a good and honourable life while the father provides us the mundane things like toys and car and fees for the education? If that was so then the role of a father in parenting felt like a second wheel to me; like he was there just to provide the material things but it was the mother who provided the important teachings of life.
As I started growing up, I slowly realised how hasty I was in making my assumption. I realised what that old saying wanted to convey was a lot subtle than my young mind could understand. It was not the material things it was talking about, it was the experience. A mother tells you what to do but a father teaches you by making you experience it- be it your first cricket lesson, your first camping trip, your first bicycle ride- he is there for you, with you.
If mother was God’s creative mind then the father would be His guiding hand. The mind’s creation would still exist but it would be shapeless without the hand’s guidance.
Right from the birth of the child he is always there, standing in the shadow. While the mother creates the life and nurtures it solely by herself for the first few months; he is there to make sure that she is warm enough, healthy enough, makes her regular hospital visits on time, telling her a joke just to make her smile and forget her problems for a moment.
When the baby starts growing up he is there in his various roles as the clown, the horse for the horseback rides, the bed time storyteller, the occasional spoiler as well as the strict disciplinarian.
A mother shapes a child by watching and instructing while a father shapes a child by leading and acting as a role model. I always thought it silly but maybe that was why in my childhood when I did something wrong and my mother scolded me my father used to say, “Listen to your mom” and when I faced a problem and needed help in solving it, my mother used to say, “Ask your dad.”
Parenting is a balancing act after all. It doesn't work if one part of the system is overbearing while the other is weak and insignificant. It works only if both are equal and complimenting to each other- as fatherhood is with motherhood.
