Father’s Day – Celebration For Some And Sadness For Others!

Fatherhood brings a lot of responsibility and also great joy to the man who is committed to being a loving father who honestly cares for the welfare of his children.

A good father bonds with his children and helps them along the path of finding out who they are, their talents, and to becoming the best they can be.

We know no one is perfect. However, there is a lot of satisfaction in being a ‘good enough’ father.
A ‘good enough’ father finds time to spend with his children and nurtures his connection with his wife. Tantra recommends building a strong love bond between parents because the stronger the love connection of the parents, the more children will grow up having a model of a marriage that works. A strong connection and good communication with his mate makes him a better lover and a better father.

Men who come to me for relationship counseling and Tantra get to understand on a deep level that trust in life comes from good mothering, and self-esteem comes from good fathering. When you tell your child that it’s OK to make mistakes and kindly but strongly invite them to look at the consequences of their actions to learn from their mistakes, you have helped your child with his or her self-esteem.

When you go to see your kids’ games, you have helped them feel important enough for you to take that time for them.

Father’s Day is your special day to celebrate all that and more.

However, I am thinking also of those fathers who made their woman pregnant by mistake and were not able or willing to commit to fatherhood. I can only imagine how painful a day like Father’s Day can be to these biological “fathers” who might have succumbed to a moment of passion and caused a birth of a human being that would grow up without them. I’m imagining that on a certain level both the child and the father are longing for each other.

Tantric wisdom extends an invitation to those “fathers” to celebrate Father’s Day as well, by forgiving themselves for their ignorance, lack of consideration of the consequences of their action, or lack of courage to take responsibility for it.

By doing this, they start to father their own inner kid that I’m guessing might not have had great self-esteem when that happened.

Forgiveness builds self-esteem and transforms guilt into love.

I also feel for those fathers who had the misfortune to lose their children in war or through some accident or sickness.

Holidays like this serve to help them mourn for the loss and get deeper into self-love.

My love goes out to all of you, fathers!

Happy Father’s Day!

I originally published this in 2008, and have had many comments, so I decided to release it again.