The father is defined as the male parent of an offspring.^[1] The adjective “paternal” refers to father, parallel to “maternal” for mother. According to the anthropologist Maurice Godelier, the parental role assumed by human males is a critical difference between human society and that of humans’ closest biological relatives - chimpanzees and bonobos - who appear to be unaware of their “father” connection.^[2][3]

The father-child relationship is the defining factor of the fatherhood role.^[4][5] “Fathers who are able to develop into responsible parents are able to engender a number of significant benefits for themselves, their communities, and most importantly, their children.”^[6] Involved fathers offer developmentally specific provisions to their sons and daughters throughout the life cycle and are impacted themselves by their doing so.^[7] Active father figures have a key role to play in reducing behaviour problems in boys and psychological problems in young women.^[8] For example, children who experience significant father involvement tend to exhibit higher scores on assessments of cognitive development, enhanced social skills and fewer behavior problems.^[9][10][11] An increased amount of father-child involvement has also proven to increase a child’s social stability, educational achievement, and even their potential to have a solid marriage as an adult. The children are also more curious about the world around them and develop greater problem solving skills.^[12] Children who were raised without fathers perceive themselves to be less cognitively and physically competent than their peers from father-present families.^[13] Mothers raising children without fathers reported more severe disputes with their child. Sons raised without fathers showed more feminine but no less masculine characteristics of gender role behavior.^[14]

The father is often seen as an authority figure.^{[15][16][17][18]} According to Deleuze, the father authority exercises repression over sexual desire.^[19] A common observation among scholars is that the authority of the father and of the [political] leader are closely intertwined, that there is a symbolic identification between domestic authority and national political leadership.^[20] In this sense, links have been shown between the concepts of “patriarchal“, “paternalistic“, “cult of personality“, “fascist“, “totalitarian“, “imperial“.^[20] The fundamental common grounds between domestic and national authority, are the mechanisms of naming (exercise the authority in someone’s name) and identification.^[20] In a patriarchal society, authority typically uses such rhetoric of fatherhood and family to implement their rule and advocate its legitimacy.^[21]

In the Roman and aristocratic patriarchal family, “the husband and the father had a measure of political authority and served as intermediary between the household and the polity.”^[22][23] In Western culture patriarchy and authority have been synonymous.^[24] In the 19th century Europe, the idea was common, among both traditionalist and revolutionaries, that the authority of the domestic father should “be made omnipotent in the family so that it becomes less necessary in the state”.^[25][26][20] In the second part of that century, there was an extension of the authority of the husband over his wife and the authority of the father over his children, including “increased demands for absolute obedience of children to the father”.^[20] Europe saw the rise of “new ideological hegemony of the nuclear family form and a legal codification of patriarchy”, which was contemporary with the solid spread of the “nation-state model as political norm of order”.

i posted that definition here because i havent been with my father…i havent seen myself with my father during my younger years.. dont know if i seated at his lap while we’re on the jeepney….we have not sleep together with mother…i havent seen his smile when i got my diploma and awards at school…never heard my father to ask me how i felt when im down…never seen him near me…. i never know if he got me on his arms when i was still a baby… never knew if we’ve been in church together attending mass…

memories i havent had and might wont get it anymore coz he left me..those were the memories that i wish i had with my father and mother…he left me..yes he left me….yes, im always alone…no parents to guide…no one to cheer me up just myself…and i thought im used to it.. i wont cry anymore….i wont shed tears at all..but im only human-got feelings-got a heart-i am a very vulnerable individual….

after seeing him and my mother on my last years birthday, after getting a picture with my mother, after a short moment that day, after a heavy big lunch with them and got some talk over the table on that day, after a kiss i give him which he asked me to give to his face before we part our ways i never thought it would be the last time i would seen him alive. i never thought it would be the last time i could see him smile and make jokes on me….

my father was like me…a male tradition of me minus the height coz he stands 5′11 and i stands at 5′2 1/2.huh! i wish i got his height too but well im happy with what i am now… i got his face, his eyebrows, his lips, his eyes and the actuations… i got them all…and im really a copycat of my father…

well…today i want to remember my father as what the last time we met. i want to remember him smiling at me and making big eyes and funny faces on me… i want to remember how he saved money to buy a big teddy bear for me on my 27th birthday to ask me for forgiveness….

and im writing this blog because i know i have no rights to speak before your body on the church and i have to express what i felt.

I LOVE YOU VERY MUCH TATAY EDDIE… i love you more than you ever know how much i love you