Relationship between Father and Son - Essay Example

Relationship between Father and His Son For as long as I can remember, my father has been close to me, actually closer than even my mother or my other siblings. My mother often jokes that when I was born, he was the first person aside from the nurses to see me and has never seemed to leave my side since then. My relationship with my father a largely complex one; on one hand he is like my friend, I can have fun with him, and we joke around. On the other hand, he applied and still applies a lot of “tough love” that I despised at first I have come to accept in light of the fact that I believe everything my father does is for my own good. He taught me how to write before I went to school; every day; he would come home and sit with me on a small chair and table next to his huge study desk. At first, I would play around in the room running around and sometimes upsetting him with my toy cars. Most times, he would smile understandingly and after he was done working, I would help him tidy up the room. However, he gradually started insisting I sit still and he would then teach me how to print out letters, words and eventually sentences. At first, I did not like the restrictions involved while he was teaching me, but I gradually got used to them. In addition, when my father wants you to do something, it is easier to do it than resist him since he will inevitably wear you out. This was the first lesson I learned about him that informed most of my interactions and sometimes-even fights with him. I began school at a slightly older age than most of my colleagues, but when the teachers realized I had been homeschooled, they put me in an accelerated program and I soon caught up with my peers. However, my father’s involvement in my life went beyond academics since he was an ardent sports fan and particularly loved football. Every Sunday, he would take me with him to the local stadium and we would watch the game and cheer his favorite team, which soon become our favorite. Sometimes when he came from work early, we would kick around a ball at the yard outside our house and then I would either join him in his study or watch TV in the den as he worked. One thing that he and I both loved apart from football was reading. He was a voracious reader and his study was filled with hundreds of books from all over the world; I had taken to perusing through some of those as I grew older and when he noticed my interest he bought me several children’s versions which I enjoyed immensely. By the time, I was 13, I had started reading most of the original works in his collection and as I bought books, I added them to his library. Like most children, I used to admire my father a great deal, he was always confident and self-assured and there was nothing I wanted than to have his praise and affections. He was an engineer in a car-manufacturing firm in our city and as a result, through him I came to love cars nearly as much as I did books. He would discuss the latest models with great enthusiasm and he taught be the basics of vehicle mechanics and even how to drive long before I was old enough to hold a license. Despite the friendly relationship my father and I had, we still had our vicissitudes that mostly occurred when he had to discipline me. I remember and incident when I was in junior school and I skipped school under the pretense of feeling unwell. My mother took me to the doctor, who immediately saw through my ruse but when he told my mum, she did not tell me and waited until my father came back in the evening. They held a council of war in his study then invited me in, my father being as perceptive as he were quickly laid my plan bare and demanded an explanation for my irresponsible behavior. I had never before seen my father angry with me; he stood tall above me with his hands bunched up in fists and held awkwardly akimbo. He stared at me right in the eyes and in seconds, I crumbled and admitted that school was boring since all the things they were teaching I already knew them anyway. My father was not amused, the next day he took me to school and had me confess and apologize to my teacher. He then withdrew my TV and football privileges for two weeks. I could not believe my dad who was my best friend could be so mean, but I gradually came to appreciate his tough love. Growing into teenage years, the relationship gradually changed since we seemed to conflict more often than we did when I was younger. Nevertheless, he continued to be my friend although I must admit I was often wary of him since he had proven very intuitive and strict when it came to detecting and punishing misbehavior. My father is one person I can run to when having a personal or an academic challenge and watch him unravel it as if it was the simplest thing the world. He inspires me to be confident at what I do and to always be assertive and trust my judgment. He still has a propensity for using tough love, which sometimes puts us at loggerheads, but I am aware that he always acts in my best interests. Therefore, even after I am angry with him, I often find that he was trying to protect me from my own pride and ignorance. The bond between a father and son is very important for the latter’s emotional growth (Paquette 194). Therefore, I believe my father has played an invaluable role in providing me with emotional stability and ultimately helped me mature into a young responsibly adult. As the years went by, I realized that despite our closeness we are drifting apart in many things since there are things as a teenager I prefer to share with my friends rather than parents. However, he is and will remain one of my best and closest friends since he is the one person that understands me even more than perhaps I understand myself. With him, I am secure since I know he will not judge me and even when he criticizes of punishes me, it is all for my own good in the long term. Works Cited Paquette, Daniel. "Theorizing the father-child relationship: Mechanisms and developmental outcomes." Human development 47.4 (2004): 193-219. Read More