Dads too deserve a pat on the back

 

 

I will not even bother myself with men who deny that they would let down their guard in parenting a daughter like that. What I will instead spend time and space on today is the man denied the opportunity to be that kind of father; the uncelebrated girl’s dad.

 

In the build up to Mothers’ Day, papers in Kampala outdid themselves and each other, running success stories of mothers of celebrities. Well and good. But have you spared a thought for fathers of those women who are not the biggest delight of the family? 

 

Of the only girl in the fold who never has a kidaala erected in her parents’ compound for a kwanjula, wedding, graduation, etc, until after she dies, probably of booze or an STD? Of the only daughter of this elderly couple who got her late, and doted on her, sent her to the best schools and later to university in the UK, yet when she returned to Uganda, she took to partying, starting a non-existent hip-hop career and dating an expired mzungu who gave her nothing but misery, until she decided to return to Europe, where her standards could be tolerated. 

 

Of the two daughters among five boys in the family, one of whom becomes a feminist fanatic and the other has fond affections for fellow females? Have you spared a thought for that father?

 

I was told about this man who loved his little gal to bits, (like the young people say). She was the life of the family. When she was in O’level, she conceived. No, not with her husband, as common sense should announce. With a freelance boyfriend. The father, not out of brutish conduct but absolute disillusionment, sent her away from home, which made her worse: She took to prostitution. 

 

Fatherhood is a tough job, and a guy wants his child to turn out right. Now double that if the child is female. He might not be doing all the things women want their husbands to do — bathe the girls, feed them, talk to them daily so they get used to dealing with male company and all these things we read from Jamesa Wagwau’s writings and Sigmund Freud’s rumblings. 

 

He might not do those things, for to tell you the truth, they are not easy. But a dad wants his girl to turn out right. He wants her to be truly female… feminine. He wants to have a girl some man will want to take on for a wife… though many fathers want to pick a spear and send the ‘dog’ away, lest he (the suitor-dog) fails to treat daddy’s gal the way she should be treated. 

 

A guy wants to raise a girl who elicits admiration, especially from normal, sane and cultured people. It is a lot easier to accept a shabbily dressed, dirty-dread-totting boy returning home at 1:00am, reeking of a mixture of spirits and funny leaves, than a girl with the same traits and habits.

 

If women knew these things, they would know the agony a father goes through watching his girls grow. They would not insist on telling the father to do it their (the women’s) way. 

 

They would not try to barge in on his silence, where he is mentally constructing her future and fighting all manner of monsters that are trying to gobble her up, just because the woman wants to share about her uneventful day. 

 

They would not accuse him of not caring about his daughter because girl, if men spoke out how much time their daughters occupy their minds, majority wives would be terribly jealous of their own daughters.