Leela Ramdeen

To­mor­row we will cel­e­brate Fa­ther’s Day. While it is im­por­tant for chil­dren to have both par­ents in their lives, the re­al­i­ty is that the nu­clear fam­i­ly con­tin­ues to be un­der threat. “Every fam­i­ly needs a fa­ther—a fa­ther who shares in his fam­i­ly’s joy and pain, hands down wis­dom to his chil­dren, and of­fers them firm guid­ance and love” (Pope Fran­cis).

In his Cat­e­ch­esis on Saint Joseph, Je­sus’ fos­ter fa­ther (2022), Pope Fran­cis said: “To bring a child in­to the world is not enough to say that one is al­so their fa­ther or moth­er. ‘Fa­thers are not born, but made. A man does not be­come a fa­ther sim­ply by bring­ing a child in­to the world, but by tak­ing up the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to care for that child. When­ev­er a man ac­cepts re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the life of an­oth­er, in some way he be­comes a fa­ther to that per­son’ (Apos­tolic Let­ter Pa­tris corde) ... I pray that no one may feel de­prived of the bond of pa­ter­nal love.” Pope Fran­cis’ apos­tolic ex­hor­ta­tion Amor­is Laeti­tia (The Joy of Love): On Love in the Fam­i­ly, seeks “to af­firm not the ‘ide­al fam­i­ly’ but the very rich and com­plex re­al­i­ty of fam­i­ly life.” (See para 177).

I know from ex­pe­ri­ence the vi­tal role that a fa­ther plays in a fam­i­ly. In the face of tremen­dous op­po­si­tion in the ear­ly 1940s, Pa, who was of In­di­an ori­gin, chose Ma, the love of his life, who was of African ori­gin (Trinida­di­an, Bar­ba­di­an and Venezue­lan). They were mar­ried for more than 50 years be­fore she died. They weath­ered all storms to­geth­er. I will for­ev­er be grate­ful for the un­con­di­tion­al love that he had for Ma, for his sev­en chil­dren, and grand­chil­dren. Pa was a man of in­tegri­ty and hon­esty. He and Ma were true role mod­els who im­part­ed to us im­por­tant life-skills and virtues that have helped to shape our char­ac­ter. I will be 75 on Mon­day. Pa and Ma were my men­tors, but I must ad­mit, that I was some­times “own-way.” Even then, they wait­ed pa­tient­ly for me to re­turn, like the fa­ther in the para­ble of the Prodi­gal Son. I thank God that my par­ents, now de­ceased, had many of the qual­i­ties of good par­ents.

Sad­ly, many chil­dren to­day are, as the say­ing goes, “blow­ing in the wind,” with no one to shape their moral com­pass. Fa­thers can play a cru­cial role in this re­gard, but they them­selves must have a moral com­pass. They can’t give/pass on what they don’t have.

“Dads re­al­ly do mat­ter. Chil­dren need fa­thers—just as they need moth­ers—to love them, to be in­ter­est­ed in them and to re­spond to their needs, mak­ing them feel val­ued and un­der­stood ... There is no for­mu­la for be­ing a good fa­ther, but re­searchers have no­ticed what a dif­fer­ence it makes to chil­dren when a fa­ther is com­mit­ted to them and en­cour­ages them in what they do” (The As­so­ci­a­tion of Child Psy­chother­a­pists, UK).

I am the vice-pres­i­dent of an NGO ti­tled Call to Ac­tion for So­cial Change Foun­da­tion (CTA). The pres­i­dent is Shaleeza Khan-Ali. CTA is “a mul­ti-re­li­gious, mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary group from civ­il so­ci­ety that ad­vo­cates and pro­motes so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and ac­count­abil­i­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go ... Our first ini­tia­tive, the ABC’s of Par­ent­ing, is a col­lec­tion of 26 ed­u­ca­tion­al videos aimed at mil­len­ni­al par­ents and com­bines both healthy old and new school tech­niques with a Trin­ba­go flavour. The tips in the videos are aimed at help­ing to cre­ate a bet­ter fam­i­ly en­vi­ron­ment” (https://cta-tt.org). You may have seen these videos on TV or on so­cial me­dia. Our four main com­mit­tees fo­cus on: Par­ent­ing and Fam­i­ly Life, Ed­u­ca­tion, Cul­ture, Ju­di­cia­ry and Law En­force­ment.

There are many oth­er NGOs, FBOs etc. that are work­ing tire­less­ly to sup­port par­ents in T&T eg Fam­i­lies in Ac­tion, the Catholic Church’s Fam­i­ly Life Com­mis­sion, the Fa­thers As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, for­mer­ly called the Sin­gle Fa­thers As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go. We are here to work side by side with our Gov­ern­ment and the pri­vate sec­tor to de­vel­op poli­cies that will ad­dress the var­ied needs of fa­thers eg fa­thers’ rights, work­place poli­cies such as pa­ter­ni­ty leave, re­spon­si­ble fa­ther­hood pro­grammes, and oth­er fa­ther­hood in­ter­ven­tions.

Fa­thers come in all forms and they face many chal­lenges/stres­sors in to­day’s world eg neg­a­tive so­cial and cul­tur­al at­ti­tudes. Let’s en­cour­age/sup­port not on­ly ded­i­cat­ed, car­ing, lov­ing fa­thers, but al­so those who are strug­gling to meet their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. We must cre­ate con­di­tions in our com­mu­ni­ties that will en­able fa­thers to meet their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties—to them­selves, their fam­i­lies, and the wider com­mu­ni­ty. Hap­py Fa­ther’s Day!