Father figure

I never appreciated how important pleats were to trousers until I started working.

Back in the day, we would watch and silently make fun of our father who ironed our pants that we would wear to school. For us, it was a bit funny to see him seriously wriggle a wet hand towel to sprinkle droplets on the folds of the pants he was ironing, and how he would exert slow and deliberate strokes to produce a singular pleat on each pant leg. Maybe it was funny for us because steam was coming out of our pants, and we were worried that my father would burn holes in them, but that never happened. I must admit my pants nowadays are never perfectly ironed, compared with how my father perfectly did it then.

As I write this, relaxed and comfortable for this Sunday’s papers, I realized my father then did not really have a day off. He worked until Saturday, and did household chores on Sunday, napped in the afternoon and thereafter, started ironing our clothes for school for the coming week.

On Monday, he would drive us quite early to school, and would park our jeep at the back of the Antipolo Church opposite our school. From there, my father would commute via public transportation to his place of work in Mandaluyong to save on fuel costs (because our owner-type jeep was not fuel-efficient).

Some of my classmates would joke about our jeep parked in front of the school all day, saying that my dad drove a Feroza (a popular compact SUV brand back then). I told my dad that my classmates were making fun of our jeep, and what my dad did next was something that always stuck in our heads (my brothers’ and mine). He said: “Mga anak, ito lang ang tandaan n’yo. Ang mahalaga, wala kayong kinakain na galing sa nakaw, at ‘wag kayong magpapakain sa mga magiging anak n’yo ng galing sa nakaw.” (Sons, always remember this: You’re not being fed with anything that comes from stealing, and don’t feed your children anything that comes from stealing.)

For someone in first year high school then, I didn’t appreciate the relevance of that answer then about our jeep being compared by my classmates to a Feroza. But my father wasn’t done. He said that the other important thing that we should always remember was: “Bago n’yo isubo ang pagkain sa bibig nyo, tingnan n’yo muna ang kapatid n’yo kung meron din siyang makakain.” (Before you put food in your mouth, check first if your brother has anything to eat as well.)

Little did I know that these two little big lessons that our father kept drilling into our heads would be the foundation of how I would choose my employer, of how I would make my decisions, and of all my social advocacies.

While immersed in these thoughts, I was almost stung by what this African-American woman talked about in a video. She cited data that 73 percent of black families are broken, and children in these families grow up without a father figure, which the moderator then attributes to the higher likelihood of these children committing crimes, dropping out of school, or staying poor. Politics or not, this could not be closer to the universal truth.

If a father’s absence is bad, a father’s presence is a great influence. There is no better explanation about the path for instance of children who become entrepreneurs, some at a level of success greater than what their fathers achieved. What they see growing up is what becomes second nature to them.

It is probably in the Philippines where you see the father’s presence despite physical absence. It’s the story of all OFW (overseas Filipino worker) fathers who physically live apart from their Filipino families. They accepted a life of lesser quality for themselves to be able to provide for their sole source of joy.

Indeed, if fathers were an invention, they were invented to address the pain point of principally providing for the family and making sure their children finish their education. There is nothing to take away from mothers who play father at the same time, but you see, this Sunday is a tribute to fathers. All men are babies and, in their own way, mellow at heart – almost all of them. That’s why they also need taking care of, and have some time for their hobbies. And for them to be able to set aside all that, and tough it out when it’s asked of them, make them deserving of this day.

So why don’t I just leave the dramatic stories for a while, and pour myself a double of my favorite single malt to raise a toast to all my fellow fathers: may you always manage to see your favorite bottle of scotch as half full.