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I always knew I had a cool dad. Not just because he would wear his khaki shorts everywhere and would have to be told to wear pants when he would be visiting school or because he let me paint his apartment wall when I was 12 with every colour that was at my disposal without blinking an eye, but mostly because he was always there. Always present.
I learnt much later in my life that the concept of a single dad staying was quite rare, and that what I had in my hands was an anomaly. You see, fathers are often expected to leave. Or, if they stay, they are expected to participate in parenting from a distance — as providers, disciplinarians, or occasional figures of guidance. There seemed to be an unspoken cultural script: mothers stay, fathers leave. Mothers nurture, fathers provide. Mothers raise children, fathers support them. A single mother was recognised as a parent carrying an immense burden; a single father, meanwhile, was often treated either as an exception or a curiosity.
My dad and I had never spoken about what that transition, from being part of a "normal" household to becoming a single parent, was like for him. So I called him, as I do whenever I'm faced with a problem I can't quite untangle. What struck me was that he didn't describe it as a dramatic upheaval. Instead, he spoke about a series of conscious decisions he made to ensure he remained present in my life.
"The first decision was to stay very near your house, so that even during the weekdays you would come over after school to study," he tells me. "I also chose a job where I could afford to come back home by 2 p.m. so that I could pick you up and spend time with you, which was different from before. In our situation, both parents involved tried to make sure that there was no uneasiness in our individual relationships with you, which also helped. In fact, during that time, and even now, what I've noticed is that the amount of time 'normal' fathers spent with their kids was often much less than what I was doing. It actually ended up working out. They can afford to take that time for granted but I wasn't in a position to do that."
And when I asked him if he had noticed a shift in perception when he became a single dad, in the most him way possible, he told me, "I've never bothered or paid attention to what others thought of me." But after I insisted that he give me an actual answer, he said, "In hindsight, people seemed to appreciate it when I was doing things they didn't expect me to do for you. When I cooked for you or took care of you when you were small, and you were also being responsive to me, people were actually surprised."
That surprise says more about our collective expectations of fatherhood than it does about my father. The things people admired him for weren't extraordinary acts of parenting, he was just taking care of his kid, but these are responsibilities we instinctively associate with mothers, not fathers. When a father performs them, he is often treated as exceptional, not because the task itself is remarkable, but because our cultural understanding of parenting still assumes that caregiving is primarily women's work. Because my mother was doing the exact same thing, and nobody looked at her with nearly as much bleary-eyed awe.
Even today, fathers are frequently praised for being "hands-on" parents, a phrase that implies their involvement is voluntary rather than expected. Mothers, meanwhile, are rarely congratulated for doing the very same things because they are seen as fulfilling a role that society has already assigned to them. Meanwhile my dad was out there learning how to braid my hair (failed miserably) and talking to my teachers about my grades, because as he said he simply didn’t care about how he was perceived; he just wanted to be my dad.
My father never told me that I could be anything I wanted to be, and would, funnily, point me to a segment of one of Chris Rock’s stand-up comedy specials. He was always realistic in how he raised me, and when I was leaving home for college, I was obviously entirely oblivious to who I was and who I would become. But I knew one thing: I wanted to make my Appaiya proud. It had been a constant endeavour since I understood the concept of pride. And I have tried throughout my life. I never got into trouble in school, and I (most of the time) never disobeyed. It wasn't until the night before I left for college, in a letter he wrote to me, that he told me he had always been proud. Not because I stayed out of trouble or because I was obedient, but simply because I existed in all my multitudes.
I've heard my girlfriends tell me that women in heterosexual relationships often look for partners who are similar to their dads because they want their children to have the father they did. Well, I disagree. Because I don't want my partner to be the dad I had; I want to be the parent he was. Someone who would take their kid to watch 'The Lunchbox' even when she was too young to understand the movie. Someone who cries at the same point in a movie he’s already watched three times, and someone who will watch their kid’s favourite movie a bajillion times even though they cannot tolerate hearing "Senorita" again. Someone who taught their child that they always had agency and the right to choose what career they pursued, who they chose to love, and where they lived, but also that the ability to choose came with immense privilege.
My father taught me that everything in life is earned, respect included. He has continuously told me that I don't have to respect him just because he’s my dad. Everything in life except love; that is a given. That comes in an unlimited supply, and my father isn't a man of many words when it comes to things like these, but he always made sure I knew that.
