Voices

The business of becoming a good father

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-06-21 07:58

Yesterday was Father's Day.

In an online look at what constitutes a good father, some 76.1 percent of respondents said a sense of responsibility toward the family was the most important thing.

It's clear fathers play an important role in the healthy development of a child.

Research by the World Health Organization indicates that children who get two hours with their fathers each day develop a higher intelligence quotient, boys become more masculine and girls develop better skills for getting along with men when they grow up.

For many Chinese children, however, there is a blank in the place where such fatherly roles should be.

Sun Xiaoyun, deputy director of the Research Center on Chinese Adolescents, said the absence of a fathers' role in children's education is a significant potential problem for the Chinese nation.

Sun's view won the support of 60.7 percent of netizens in a survey.

In the minds of many people, the main responsibility of a father is to earn money. They have to travel a lot on business and stay up late for business activities. The role of the man in the social and business world becomes stronger as a result of all the hours he puts in, but the role he plays in the education of his children is diminished because he is absent so often.

It is a deeply-rooted view that, in a family, the husband is supposed to handle the "big issues" outside of the family while the "trivial issues" within the family are left to the wife.

An investigation conducted by the Beijing Women's Federation found that among family members, children are cared for and educated by their mothers 70.2 percent of the time and by their fathers 20 percent of the time.

The lack of a father's role may result in children having character defects and imbalanced development. Without the company of fathers during their growing up, children may lack a sense of adventure, tend to be timid, over sentimental, isolated and have an inferiority complex.

There are few fathers able to get along with their children like friends and fewer fathers who have a real understanding of their children. Many stress their authoritative role in the family and demand their children obey them absolutely. To that end, some even resort to violence.

Good fathers are really rare.

It is high time for fathers to wake up and fulfill their role. They must realize a father cannot be replaced by money or anybody else. They should pay a little less attention to business and spend more time with their children.

To clarify a father's responsibility, Sweden has a Fathers' Law. China could learn something from it.

It would be a good idea to introduce special classes for fathers because no one is born a good parent, but most can learn to become a good father.

Excerpts from a comment in Beijing Youth Daily, June 16