Rui Fonseca (rfonseca@fm.ul.pt)
UTI – Information Technology and Communications

Father of Catarina (aged 7) and Raquel (aged 4)

What a difficult task, this of writing about Father’s Day… It seems simple, for someone who is the father of two children, but it isn’t! So I hope not to be boring in the few words and transcriptions about the several different phases of (my) life as a FATHER.

When we get the news, whether a surprise or not, the joy is immense. We rush straight out to tell our parents (future grandparents), friends and neighbours; indeed, it’s as if we gained wings, just like that advert about an energy drink.

In fact, being a FATHER is the achievement of a life project. It is a dream come true!

Mothers will please forgive me, but we fathers also “get pregnant” without the “inconveniences” of pregnancy … That is, the feelings, emotions and concerns are also ours during the nine-month gestation period.

On the day when we finally have the so fragile and defenceless being that we have so desired in our arms, the whirlwind of emotions is so great that many of those who say they are courageous, strong and other adjectives collapse. It is impossible to describe what we feel in words. I managed to hold up, but I can say that at a certain time I saw the air of worry on the face of the nurse asking me, certainly thinking that she was going to have to come to the aid of one more FATHER in trouble:

“Are you all right, sir? Don’t you want to sit down?”

I was crying… It looked like I had shares in the Fireman’s Union …

Over the months and years, not to say the life ahead, we realise that our sleep and rest are never going to be the same again, that the concerns and well-being of our children come first.

Now I can say that there is nothing so comforting as seeing our “little offspring” sleeping profoundly, even when we have bags under our eyes.

It is due to these and other moments that we earn the “stomach” for the mission of being a FATHER.

A few years later, in the “age of the whys”, which many of you have certainly heard about, when we think we can answer anything to children of that age group, believe me we ALWAYS end up discovering that we are completely wrong and that we still have a lot to learn … Children’s questions and curiosity are so surprising and disconcerting that they leave us completely “disarmed” and unable to answer.

At (primary) school it’s different story; they know a lot and we know little (if it is like this at the beginning I don’t even want to think about what it’s like at the “end”). Indeed, one needs a certain dos of patience and perseverance… the results in fact APPEAR, believe me. I learned that after a few headaches!

For now I’m giving them their wings, but without taking their feet off the ground.

I’ll finish off here, stating that the mission of a FATHER is also one of constant learning, and only through correcting our errors can we improve and become better fathers.

Knowing how to say no to our children is to know how to raise them and to know how to say yes is even more important, as we are showing them the path that they ought to follow.

I can’t end without paying homage to MOTHERS, because without them we could never be FATHERS.

Happy FATHER’S DAY!