Fathers
On Christmas day, one of my father’s newest business associate (well, I’ll use “business” in the most liberal of manner) gave a box of expensive Marks and Spencer chocolate-coated biscuits. With the gift he gave a condition - that my father must be the one opening it and sharing in the consumption. Even though he supposedly took off from work at the end of the year, it took nearly two weeks for us to open it because our father isn’t around.
Couple of weeks before Christmas me and my father had a major flare up. It was a stupid fight. I’m angry at him for not getting it, he’s angry that I’m angry, he tries to talk to me, I refuse saying that the conclusion is inevitable, *smack* *smack* *smack* he proved my point. At one point of the conversation, he defended his workaholic lifestyle (where coming home at 8p.m. is early, waking up at 4a.m. to work is normal) saying he’s doing it all for us.
In other words, he’s slaving (his choice in vocab) for us. Sad we - my brothers and I - needed a father not a slave.
There was a certain man without a dependent, having neither a son nor a brother, yet there was no end to all his labor. Indeed, his eyes were not satisfied with riches and he never asked, “And for whom am I laboring and depriving myself of pleasure?” This too is vanity and it is a grievous task. - Ecclesiastes 4:8 NASB.
The thing with him is that he works so hard and yet we are never better off. The harder he works, the more in debt he is. He is easy in granting wishes though - part of the whole Guilty Father Syndrome - hoping material presents would subsitute for actually being around. It’s quite frustrating he spending a chunk of his money spending us yet in the end, he can’t pay for my education. I either have to settle for much less than anyone around me, to a life of uncertainty or have to be above-average brilliantly smart, high-scoring and get a scholarship somewhere.
Many are successful without getting an higher education (though there is a higher amount of people who aren’t…), I can get around that. But my point is, he’s not my father. He just contributed half of my genes.