Dad versus Father: What is the real difference and why you should care

What you need to know:

Many men grew up in homes where they were no polite conversations between them and their parents

When was the last time you got heartbroken? A heartbreak that you could not hide and caused you pain in parts that you didn’t know existed in you?

That is what I went through this weekend and before you say it aloud, it wasn’t about matters of love and the lack of it. I made a foolish decision to jump into F1 and I paid for it with my emotions—as if Manchester United hasn’t done me dirty for the past seven years. Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen were down to the last race of the F1 circuit and they were tied on points to determine the World Championship. It was exhilarating!
Hamilton was leading until the last lap when an accident happened and the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) made a change of rules sporadically giving Max an edge over Hamilton. I love competitions even when I can clearly see that my team is on the losing end but I am also an advocate for fair fights.
In this case, it was disheartening to see that happen but something that has stuck on my mind since is the reaction of Hamilton's father. He held him and comforted him. Lewis talked about owing his success to the father. His father was poor, they lived in public housing and at one point, he worked three jobs and remortgaged his home just to survive, and here he is now a seven-time world champion.
His father’s reaction also challenged my thinking when I came across online discussions about how Gen Z are pushing back against their parents and showing disrespect towards them. But not only that. I also saw a thread of children talking about how their parents don’t understand them or even try to.
Having a child whom you can have discussions with and not necessarily shouting matches or beating is something many men can’t wrap their heads around because it’s not the life they grew up in. Many men were brought up in homes where the mother was the de facto disciplinarian and when she resorted to escalating it to your father, you knew that you were staring at death. You would beg your mother to beat you instead because your father had the wrath of the gods.
Then we grew up and decided to be different. You know, be more kind and accommodating. We want to listen to our kids as men so that they’re not scared of us like most of us are with our parents. We want to have real relationships with them. But then you live in a world where having polite conversations with our own children is regarded with utter disgust—we are branded as “softie” men.
But it’s time for a new dawn. We admire people’s relationships with their fathers because they are the kind of relationships that we wish we had but it takes a lot of intentionalities to have such with our children. There is a lot to learn and unlearn.