YeKengalé

It was just a few years ago that my friend who happened to lead one of the several Father’s support organizations in the island approached me with the predicament that the men’s movement was having. A woman’s organization had announced its launch on Father’s day, which was a perceived affront to all ‘di man dem’ who already were starved of public affirmation, especially when comparing all the pomp and circumstance given to Mother’s day to the non event of Father’s Day, where all that could be expected generally was another tie … or pair of socks.

The women eventually relented but the men were peeved. Truth is, men are accustomed to being under-appreciated. It’s what we do. It is Jamaican men that have put the Jamaican woman on her pedestal, even if that woman is not wife but mother. Look how many Momma-songs go viral. They hit a nerve in the culture. And none of those mother-songs are sung by women. ‘Momma’ is next to God in Jamaican culture. Mutabaruka once said if he had to become a Christian, he would be Catholic. He identified with their Mary-worship. Something about a triune male council with no women in sight deeply disturbed his theological (or psychological) inclinations.

The fact is, Jamaican men don’t generally require a fuss. Something deeper was going on. This was the circumstance that drew me into Father’s Day advocacy, although I found it strange, not yet being a biological father, although I certainly have contributed to the mentorship of a few, (numbered amongst them were not the children of my x-wife, who I had all met as adults). It was the few though who would call me ‘Dad’ and communicate their gratitude for my being ‘like a father’ to them that would give me the closest feeling of Fatherly appreciation that convinced me not to disqualify myself from being a part of the action. And besides, I am an authentic son of a father, and my experience in that relationship has made me passionate about father issues and the culture.

For three years straight I produced a Father’s Day special, mostly on my own dime, designed to strengthen the father-bond in the culture. We highlighted the work of the various Father’s support groups, showcased pop culture figures who were setting good father examples – Wayne Marshall, Couric Clarke, Sean Paul, Junior Gong, Chris Martin, etc. as well as examples from the church, and also platformed the scholarship of Dr Herbert Gayle, the late Prof. Barry Chevanne’s Elisha.

I hoped not only to inspire and inform but also dignify Dad’s day with a little pizzaz. Apart from a few preachers hollering from their pulpits cries of shame on worthless fathers who need to repent, and the usual overseas shout-outs to dislocated Daddies or children, the TV programming on Father’s day was pretty much the same as any other, unlike Mother’s day where we all gather for the annual pilgrimage to our own local Mother shrines to bless the Mother figure with Catholic zeal.

After three years I started to suspect what was the deeper thing going on in our culture. Men were tired of the Daddy – bashing and blame for all the criminal ills of society. And Gayle’s scholarship, which we had dared to platform, highlighted this. The implication of Gayle’s data-based analysis racked the gender-nerve of every true blooded Jamaican – male and female. The inferences were clear:

1. Fatherhood is desirable but not essential to sound family life. In fact, Daddy is dispensable. Mommy, however is foundational.
2. Fatherhood in Jamaica has never been better. All this Wutless-Daddy bashing is scape-goating. In fact, the real culprit behind violent criminality is not an absent Daddy, but a very present and deeply abusive Mommy – you know the type unanchored from all feminine graces? The bitter woman. The man-hater …of both father and son. We may know those family types. (Father, son and unholy bitch). Those are the killer-cradlers, Gayle says, and the data seems to bear him out.

Even if men are to accept secondary blame as the source of that woman’s distress who has become a man-hater and pushed her son to the gun, still it’s mother-scorn that nourishes the sociopath. Most of us couldn’t care two hoots about Daddy-scorn. In fact, absent or abusive fathers have the curious tendency to motivate us psychologically. We invest our energies in proving them wrong or unworthy or incidental. It’s Momma-scorn that sends us to the point of desperation or no return. Daddy didn’t love me … screw him. Momma hates me … screw ’em all. Apparently we do deeply need to worship Momma.

A dispensable Daddy however is deeply theologically disturbing for the Christian, even if sociologically sensible. I get why our programs, though viewed both nationally and regionally on the religious networks, never really ‘caught on’, inspite all the good intentions.

They remain archived on youtube, and whether for inspiration, information, encouragement or controversy, I recommend them to men on Father’s Day. It might be more entertaining than the tie and then silence.