The Titanic

In the 1980s when I was growing up daddy got a scholarship opportunity to study his masters in the United States. This was an opportunity that was very rare back then and it's one of those things that you would define as comes once-in-a-lifetime. Contrary to what was expected and after much thought, He declined the opportunity simply because there was no slot for the family to travel and that would mean he would have to leave us for more than 2 years. He was caught between a rock and a hard place to either pursue personal development at the expense of family or stick with the family at the expense of personal development. He chose family and lost the opportunity. This didn’t make sense at all. Or did it? Fast forward, over three decades later, His kids are all grown, and He holds a Ph.D. and resides in the United States.

One Sunday evening in the summer of 2011, I paced up and down the corridors, waiting with bated breath. I was nervous, I was tense, this encounter was a first! A good friend and colleague of mine was present and with the calmness of voice, he assured; “It’s going to be ok, Jamo!” I gathered guts, rushed in, stood by her side, her hand firmly clang to mine. I kept on assuring her that it would be fine. At 4.32 pm a cry was heard and lo & behold the baby boy emerged. I was overwhelmed with joy and with tears welling down my eyes, and with trembling hands, I took my phone and captured some images of this young guest! My mind was blown away and it dawned on me; “I am now a father!” The joy was there for all to see! The journey of fatherhood had just begun.

Fatherhood begets fatherhood and Every man needs a father figure, biological or not, to be a father.  The Titanic was a luxury steamship that sank in the early hours of April 15, 1912, off the coast of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic after sideswiping an iceberg during its maiden voyage. Of the 2,240 passengers and crew on board, more than 1,500 lost their lives in the disaster. This Royal Mail Steamer (Titanic) was the product of intense competition among rival shipping lines in the first half of the 20th century. The Titanic was made to utmost precision and was deemed to be perfect or, so it seemed until it hit the iceberg and crashed and thereafter followed by all manner of theories and jibes as to why it sank. 

Everyman is born with a titanic intent; Born to sail the world, conquer the world, change the world and to rule it! The challenge with the Titanic was that from the onset the design was flawed and so when it encountered the obstacle, its crash was inevitable. Our society is faced with iceberg challenges and every eye is gazed at the man, to fix it and provide lasting solutions, yet this titanic man is in a state of emotional turmoil faced with the pressure to solve what he has no capacity to. This is a man who has not experienced the total fruits of fatherhood. He has had to deal with the absentee (never there) father, the presentee (physically there but not there) father, the father in pursuit of materialism, the polygamous father, the wife-battering father, the drunkard father, the broken father, the mis-fathered father. The titanic man also has to face the challenge of the modern woman and a society that is constantly pushing for girl child empowerment and gender equality. The woman is being fixed, yet no one is fixing the man. The voice of the woman is being heard while the voice of the man is being hushed. 

A broken man doesn't know how to cope with a complete woman, but a complete man does. Complete fatherhood is the ingredient that engineers a complete man. We must go back to the basic we must empower our men to be complete men, to father right, and be right fathers. In problem-solving, you don’t deal with the symptoms but address the root cause. The solution to fatherhood problems lies with the man because he is naturally titanic-born to sail and conquer! To achieve the ideal fatherhood, there are sacrifices we must make, there is a journey we must travel. We must go back to the ultimate designer, the Deity and ask Him to course correct us into ultimate fathers, else, we will always remain broken.The man I am today, is as a result of a father who made sacrifices,created time and not only mentored me to sail, but sailed with me,assisting me to steer away from the icebergs to the point he was certain that I could steer on my own. As men we must speak with each other and be true enough to say when we are broken. Let's be intentional to mentor the nextgen, let's be intentional to rewrite the story from failed fatherhood to a successful fatherhood. Let’s be intentional to address our faults before we encounter the iceberg and sink in turmoil, never to recover. 

Jamo