Every Fa­ther’s Day, I give thanks to God for hav­ing had the guid­ance and in­spi­ra­tion of my fa­ther, the late Jus­tice Lennox Deyals­ingh.

He came from an era where dis­ci­pline, spir­i­tu­al de­vel­op­ment and civic re­spon­si­bil­i­ty were part of the cul­ture. He left me a lega­cy of val­ues that I con­tin­ue to strive to em­u­late.

I have many hap­py mem­o­ries of my fa­ther. I al­so re­mem­ber the oc­ca­sion­al spank­ing with his “rod of cor­rec­tion,” which was in­vari­ably fol­lowed by a hug and an ex­pla­na­tion. He nev­er al­lowed cor­rec­tion to stand on its own; it was al­ways ac­com­pa­nied by re­as­sur­ance, wis­dom and a clear ex­pres­sion of his af­fec­tion.

Part of my du­ty as a fa­ther is to pass on those same val­ues to my three sons. My life part­ner, Sherene, shares those val­ues, which has made the jour­ney of par­ent­ing eas­i­er and more mean­ing­ful.

It is both a priv­i­lege and a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to be a fa­ther. As a fa­ther, I have con­cerns for my sons—their ed­u­ca­tion, their safe­ty in an in­creas­ing­ly vi­o­lent so­ci­ety, their abil­i­ty to nav­i­gate the neg­a­tive in­flu­ences of so­cial me­dia, and their find­ing a life com­pan­ion, as I have in their moth­er.

In some fam­i­lies, there is a mis­con­cep­tion that a fa­ther’s role is sim­ply to pro­vide fi­nan­cial­ly. Fa­thers help shape char­ac­ter and in­stil val­ues. Chil­dren learn not on­ly from what fa­thers say but from what fa­thers do. A fa­ther leads by ex­am­ple.

I be­lieve that if we are to build a na­tion of car­ing, em­pa­thet­ic and re­spon­si­ble cit­i­zens, we must cre­ate homes where love, dis­ci­pline, re­spect and ac­count­abil­i­ty are taught and prac­tised.

At the same time, fa­thers do not raise chil­dren alone. Moth­ers pro­vide love, nur­tur­ing and emo­tion­al sup­port that are in­dis­pens­able to a child’s healthy de­vel­op­ment. Fa­ther­hood should nev­er be seen as a sub­sti­tute for moth­er­hood; rather, it is part of a com­ple­men­tary part­ner­ship in which both par­ents bring unique strengths to the growth and well-be­ing of their chil­dren.

Fa­ther’s Day should re­mind us of the im­por­tance of be­ing ac­tive­ly present in our chil­dren’s lives. So­ci­ety pays a heavy price when fa­thers are ab­sent. The con­se­quences are of­ten re­flect­ed in ed­u­ca­tion­al un­der­achieve­ment, in­creased in­volve­ment in crime, sub­stance abuse and emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal dis­tress among young peo­ple.

A fa­ther who pri­ori­tis­es his health, man­ages stress and ex­press­es emo­tions in healthy ways teach­es valu­able lessons about re­silience and self-care.

Ju­ly is Men’s Health Month. Dur­ing this pe­ri­od, we try to reach out to our men to en­cour­age them to pri­ori­tise both their phys­i­cal and men­tal well-be­ing, recog­nis­ing the im­por­tant role they play in their fam­i­lies and so­ci­ety.

Many men grow up be­liev­ing they must al­ways be strong and self-re­liant. As a re­sult, they re­frain from seek­ing help and of­ten suf­fer in si­lence. We must cre­ate en­vi­ron­ments where men feel safe dis­cussing their strug­gles be­fore a cri­sis de­vel­ops. De­pres­sion, anx­i­ety, rage and sui­cide are ris­ing—but help-seek­ing is not.

Stig­ma im­pris­ons men. There is stig­ma around vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and men­tal health ser­vices.

Seek­ing help should not be seen as a weak­ness; it is a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. Sta­tis­tics re­mind us why this con­ver­sa­tion mat­ters. Men ex­pe­ri­ence dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly high rates of sui­cide, homi­cide, sub­stance abuse and pre­ventable ill­ness.

In Trinidad and To­ba­go, ap­prox­i­mate­ly four out of every five sui­cide deaths oc­cur among men. Sui­cide is of­ten not the prob­lem it­self but a symp­tom of deep­er is­sues such as de­spair, lone­li­ness, hope­less­ness and loss of pur­pose.

Men face chal­lenges at every stage of life. Young men may strug­gle with aca­d­e­m­ic pres­sure, un­em­ploy­ment, re­la­tion­ship is­sues and un­cer­tain­ty about the fu­ture. Mid­dle-aged men of­ten car­ry the bur­den of sup­port­ing fam­i­lies while nav­i­gat­ing eco­nom­ic chal­lenges. Old­er men may ex­pe­ri­ence iso­la­tion, de­clin­ing health and a loss of pur­pose af­ter re­tire­ment. Yet through­out life, the need for con­nec­tion, mean­ing and sup­port re­mains con­stant.

We need more so­cial in­ter­ven­tions and a mul­ti-min­is­te­r­i­al ap­proach in­volv­ing the Min­istry of Health, the Min­istry of Labour and the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices.

Ad­dress­ing men’s health al­so re­quires a whole-of-so­ci­ety ap­proach. Fam­i­lies, schools, work­places, health­care providers, faith-based or­gan­i­sa­tions and non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions must all play a role in cre­at­ing health­i­er and more sup­port­ive en­vi­ron­ments.

My mes­sage to every man is sim­ple: your health mat­ters. Take care of your phys­i­cal and men­tal well-be­ing. Stay con­nect­ed to fam­i­ly and friends. And if you are strug­gling, reach out for help.

This Fa­ther’s Day, let us cel­e­brate fa­thers, sup­port men, strength­en fam­i­lies and build a so­ci­ety where every man feels val­ued, con­nect­ed and em­pow­ered to live a healthy and mean­ing­ful life.