Be Aware 
Who is Ever Ready for Fatherhood?
We are never trained for the role. When we were growing up, we never had any discussions on it. What rings in my head is my mother’s voice saying, “When you have children I hope they are as naughty as you are!”
So we all stumble into it – very much amateurs in the game.
What we do, though, is to look at the way we were brought up by our parents and make judgments on what was right and what did not work. Then we resolve that these are the things we will or will not do when we become parents.
That is about the only training I got for fatherhood.
I came into fatherhood wanting a son. This was the result of having being brought up in a traditional family where the son was the focus of the family. I was the only boy, with three sisters (one older), a mother and two female maids.
I wanted a son, like I would have liked a brother, to balance out all the females in my life. My father, in the days of strikes and riots during the 50’s and 60’s, was very seldom at home, working long hours.
Preparing for Fatherhood
When I got married, we had a child quickly. Our courtship ran for five years and I thought we knew each other well enough to have a child straight away. I was 30 years old, and reasoned that by the time I was 51 my son would be 20, which would see me young enough to engage him.
Mark was born in Singapore about one year after we were married, in July 1975. I was present at his birth. I was thoroughly overawed by the experience. Six years later we had our daughter, Emma, born in England, where my wife Julia and I were on a three-year sabbatical. Julia as studying Speech and Drama and I was at university reading Law.
The biggest change in my life, which the children brought, was a realisation of the responsibility I had taken on. True to my upbringing, this responsibility tended to focus on meeting the financial needs of having a family.
I remember going to my partner in our money broking business to ask for more money a few days after Mark was born. It was not easy because we had just started the business together and as usual with new businesses, cash was tight. Yet my partner was very generous and gave me a $2,000 salary rise, which greatly eased the burden.
Another result of my upbringing was that I started out believing it was the job of the wife to look after the children and the husband brought in the bread. Yet, Julia worked throughout our marriage. I soon had to learn to take on a share of these responsibilities – and it was not an easy transition.
I inherited a strong sense of family. Having children made me realise how much family meant to me. I am happiest when I have all the family around me, whether it is simply having a casual chat or sharing a meal together. It is the greatest joy of fatherhood.
Enter Your Children’s World
This is how I entered my children’s world as they were growing up.
The most important lesson I learnt from my children was patience. At Law school I read the English Law Lords who spoke about ‘not putting old heads on young shoulders’. My children showed me how it worked – how it was necessary for parents to avoid forcing unrealistic adult expectations upon their young children.
It is extremely hard to do, and can only be achieved with conscious awareness. As an adult father I had to learn to encourage and support, and not only to judge and criticise.
Did I succeed most of the time? No! Like most of my generation we were brought up with parents pointing out everything we did wrong, and allowing what we did right to take care of itself.
All I could do was to try to remember to be encouraging, and kick myself when I realised I had been in a situation that needed encouragement but I failed to give it. One could not be on one’s guard all the time; childhood habits picked up tend to be deeply engrained!
Schooling was a big thing. Again my upbringing told me it was the responsibility of the school and teachers to educate my children, while I paid the bills. I even remember saying to Mark once, “I pay all this money for you to go to the United World College not for you to fail to learn how to read properly!”
I learnt, perhaps better late than never, how much of a partnership was involved in my children’s education – a partnership between parent, child and school. This is a lesson I should have learnt sooner. Still both Mark and Emma went to university, despite my shortcomings. They were lucky because their mother understood it all along.
Walk with Them
This is how I continue to enter my children’s world to walk alongside them as adults.
Mark is now 35. He has just finished his Masters in Education at Cambridge.
Prior to that, Mark had already been working in the family business, Julia Gabriel Centre for Learning. Mindful of the lessons I learnt while he was growing up, I took the family to Harvard for the Families in Business programme.
At Harvard, Mark understood that he did not have a right to be in the business. He had to earn that right by performing and gaining the respect of all his colleagues.
He did not automatically have to aspire to lead the company. Someone else might have been a better person for that role – but he needed to learn to be an owner of the business. He needed to learn how to sit on the Board of Directors and make strategic decisions so as to enable the management to take the business to new heights.
We work very well together. We discuss issues and I leave him to get on with his area of responsibilities. He has his strengths and he has learnt how to play to those strengths. He came into the business because he wanted to and not because we asked him. So he is doing what he wants, and not fulfilling any family obligation.
On the other hand, my daughter, Emma, 29, has an Early Childhood Degree from Edith Cowan University, and is teaching children with learning difficulties in Perth. She wants nothing to do with the family business. She may also remain in Australia and not return to Singapore.
I am very comfortable with that. We are very good friends, possibly because when she was a child I had more time to spend with her. The investment of time reaped the benefit of a strong father-daughter bond. Today we see each other two or three times a year, but we talk on the telephone two to three times a week. The bond stays strong.
Looking Back
When I look back, I know I could have done better. The lessons of taking responsibility, support in education, patience, among other things, are lessons I wish I had learnt before I took on the job. I know I started off as an incompetent parent, but I was knocked into shape along the way.
I believe your children are on loan to you, sent to you to teach you lessons. We are privileged to spend a few years of their lives with them. As a father, I could not have asked for a better son and daughter.
Finally I commend you to the verse in The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran:
Your children are not your children,
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself
They come through you but are not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts,
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you
For life goes not backward not tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
About the Author: David Gabriel, 65, is co-founder and director of the Julia Gabriel Centre for Learning. David and his wife Julia, are parents to Mark, 35. and Emma, 29.
