A Dad’s Dilemma

Gaurab Luitel 

A week ago, I took my son to a vaccination campaign at a school where I completed by secondary education. When the queue was too long, I decided to take him on a tour to the school where I spent most of my childhood as a student. Things have changed a lot at the school after I graduated from there almost two decades ago.

There’s a small station for kids to hang, slide, swing and play. I set my son free to let him enjoy with himself while he was still in my surveillance. ‘Helicopter parenting’ is not what I believe in. I have cultivated a parenting philosophy that allows the kids to be ‘happy-go-lucky’, unless what he is doing doesn’t harm anyone.

Although similar structure – in a smaller version – was there at his pre-school as well, he was really having a whale of time at the play-station there. All of a sudden, a kid, probably little older than my son, appeared from nowhere and started ‘squeezing’ my son for no reason. Unlike me, it seems his guardian wasn’t overseeing him.

At first, I didn’t want to intervene them – thinking the kid wanted to play with my son. But when the squeezing motion gradually turned into knock and bump, I realised he didn’t seem to be seeking any company. As I saw a scary look in my son’s eyes, I concluded that they weren’t making fun, rather he was being bullied.

Then I decided to approach the scene in order to intervene. I didn’t want to sound like a mean father who care about his son only. Therefore, in a grandpa-like tone I told the kid that good boys don’t indulge in a fight. After all, he was also a kid, just like mine.

I took my son home after getting the jab. But that scary look of my son still haunted me for a while. Perhaps, I was going too far – overreacting on the scene I had watched at the school that day. 

In the pursuit of making him a good human being, I had never given a thought on molding him into a fighting creature. I kept pondering, I was there to ‘rescue’ him but I won’t be alongside him every time. I feared how will he tackle with this ruthless world when I am not with him and panicked how will he survive in this Darwin’s planet of ‘survival-of-the-fittest’?

When I was just a son, I might not have understood my dad’s feeling. At times, I might have turned deaf ear to him when he was trying to protect me. I might have hurt him by not heeding him at the crucial instances. I think, one can empathise this feeling only after being a father himself.

This isn’t just about my son. The kid who tried to bully my child is also vulnerable in this reckless world. His actions might be a consequence of something going around in his family or in the atmosphere where he is being raised. If a kid is reacting viciously, there are chances that something is wrong in his nurturing and care.

No criminal in the world is offender innately; it’s the delinquent environment that gradually makes them commit a felony. Therefore, every parent should focus on making their child a better human by practically teaching ethical values, morale and humanity, for if we want to make this world a better place to live.

In that way, one day no father should worry about his child, even when he is not around.