"I don't think that being a strong person is about ignoring your emotions and fighting your feelings. Putting on a brave face doesn't mean you're a brave person. That's why everybody in my life knows everything that I'm going through. I can't hide anything from them. People need to realise that being open isn't the same as being weak."

- Taylor Swift

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Men are fathers before anything else.

Feminist that I am, I firmly believe that, God or not, women are first intended to be mothers and - and this is what most people miss out on - men are first intended to be fathers. I think we all forget this - because career and education and finance and business aside, it is a man's first responsibility to be a good father to his children. God or not.

There is nothing sexist about responding to the natural calling of parenthood. Although it's hard, especially for women, to balance professional and private lives, it can work. My mother has always been working and/or studying full time and my sister and I have never felt like she hasn't struck the perfect balance. Love you, mum ;).

What I don't understand is that men have so much time, so many opportunities, and yet an alarmingly increasing number fail invest enough time or energy to be decent fathers. I mean, women have to face workplace discrimination, pay inequities, the time bomb that is the female biological clock - there is no excuse why any man in the world cannot be a good father. A great man is a great father, or else he is not a man at all. There's nothing particularly feminine or unmasculine about raising children, otherwise women would just asexually reproduce and there'd be no men to walk the Earth. Think about it. God or not.

There's more to being a father than putting money in a bank account. Think about it - are you doing all you can to be the best father you can be? 

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