I WANT TO BE FATHERS!

I ever so diligently respect and adore my father, yes in the African way. The standard African way, not the bourgie African way. I have wanted to be my father so many times, because as a child I have marveled at how untroubled it must be to him. I have always been sure that the man is more than sated to be what he is. I’m still tentatively sure that it must be thrillingly awesome to be my father. I mean, our fathers are so imperfect but are treated perfectly in their homes. They are the very men our mothers complain about, the very men our mothers go to church about, to pray for, to furtively intercede for in the name of choir practice and women’s guild fellowships and what not. Still the treatment they receive in these homes is the kind that befits royalties by all standards. Our fathers have no idea where salt, tomatoes or vegetables come from, they’ll get the lion’s share after food is cooked nonetheless. To just come home and sit in the sitting room, hungry but unbothered about food preparation must be nice. The other day I happened to be in an elderly couple’s home at around 6 o’clock in the evening, so I was asked to wait in the sitting room where the man was relaxing on the seat as the woman finds me what I’d come for. So I sat there stealing occasional glances at the photographs on the wall, yellowed with age in the dusty vintage picture frames. The man was generous with stories and folk tales and of all the things he said, the most intriguing must have been this “Mimi nalala hapa nimeboeka tu, nangoja mama alete Ugali nikule nilale.” This loosely translates to “I’m lying here bored and am waiting for her to bring Ugali so I eat and sleep.” Man those words thrilled me! I wanted to be a married man. I even willed the universe to make me one right away. To just come from wherever, kick your shoes off and relax about as somebody else goes to whichever extents to ensure you eat and drink must be exciting, must be soothing. In these parts of the world children, both boys and girls, grow up aspiring to be fathers, never mothers. Because fathers eat the biggest pieces of meat and use the fanciest of cutlery and crockery. Because fathers have their laundry done for them and their shoes cleaned. Because fathers are listened to when they speak. Because unlike fathers, mothers serve everybody else and remain in the kitchen eating the little food in the pot. So children want to be fathers. When children play “Chavana” or “Kalongolongo” which literally means playing pretend- home setting, every child wants to play father, regardless of the child’s gender. So I have, guiltily, wanted to be fathers, to just relax and get everything nice. To have an annoyingly demanding self, to be exhilaratingly intolerable and revered regardless. To be feared in illogical ways. To be assumed highly knowledgeable. You see I want to be fathers because I want luxury, because I think it’s not as burdensome as being mothers. I know I’m built to be mothers, anatomically, I want to live like fathers nevertheless. To lounge and get served with evening tea. To be approached with caution. To have food brought to me when I’m hungry and bored. To wear all my shirts and trousers and not to have to care about where the next set of clean clothes will come from. To get away with saying unreasonable things and doing foolish things because they are fathers.

I want to be my father and all other fathers I know. Unreasonable right? I want to regardless.