Growing up I have come to discover that there is a difference between how fathers show love to their children and how mothers do. Both parents can love their children to the moon and back, but they show it in totally different ways. This is why every child needs both parents to love and care for them. It’s not easy when a child only knows what it means to be cared for, but has to learn what it means to be strong on their own. And it’s not easy when a child only knows what it means to be strong with no one to care for them. A father’s love teaches a child to protect themselves, why a mother’s love protects the child. There a father's who give their kids mother’s love and mothers who give their kids the father’s love probably because it is the only way they know how to show love, or they have to step in as both father and mother.
My dad wasn’t really around for me growing up, and when he was I feared him more than I loved him. My mum however played the role of both father and mother in most cases, but then there was a limit to how much she could play father. I remember entering puberty stage and started experiencing some male changes, it was hard to open up to anyone, I remember wishing my dad would come home so we could talk about these things, but even when he was home, we couldn’t talk because he never experienced that fatherly love from his own dad and thus didn’t know how to show it.
At age 18 I promised myself to give my kids all the love my dad never knew how to give me. It was the kind of love that prepares one to face challenges in life. A lot of things I know today, I learned the hard way from my own mistakes and naiveness. I’ve learned that it’s okay to make those mistakes but it is not okay to remain naive. A mother’s love though strong can keep a child naive because they mostly know what it means to be protected and not to protect. I want to be the kind of father that teaches his kids about life, allows them to experience the beauty and catastrophe life can bring while I stay on the sidelines protecting them when they are not aware and teaching them to stand up when they fall.
In the days when my dad was rich, I told my sister I was going to make my own money and not depend on my dad’s money. It’s what I want to teach my own children, to learn to gather wealth and earn everything they own. If I become a billionaire tomorrow, I will obviously want my child to take over my empire, but before my child reaches that level of taking over, they must first understand the things I have come to understand about life. they must learn the life of the trenches so they don't look down on those who did not have the privilege of being born into wealth. They must understand the necessity of failure so that they can value little wins, and they must understand loving is sacrificial, so they know how to show it.
