Hi everyone. Today in her Sunday Poser, Sadje asks us to share our most precious memory of our father or the father figure in our life.
My father was a homemaker and my and my sister’s primary caretaker when we were children. As such, he, rather than my mother, was the one I’d see when I came home from school.
As a child, I took very much after my father, but now I have very mixed feelings about our relationship. My father is intelligent and he knows it. He also knows that I am intelligent and he feels that this somehow negates all my problems. In his opinion, all people who disagree with him, particularly those in the helping professions, are stupid.
Because my father and I are both intelligent, my father did encourage my cognitive development from an early age. This is evident in my different response to my parents when prompting me, for example. There’s this Dutch nursery rhyme that goes: “One, two, three, four, paper hat, paper hat.” Whenever my mother chanted: “One, two, three, four…”, I’d reply with “paper hat”. When my father chanted the same though, I’d reply with “five!”.
this is not a direct memory I have of my father though, as I was too young to form actual, verbal memories when this happened. I do remember, however, my father teaching me math when I was about seven. He would show me square calculation by using computer chips that were square-shaped. He’d lay them in a row of, say, three, then lay them in a square of three by three and explain that this is a square calculation. (The Dutch word for the square calculation and the shape isn’t the same, so I had to follow an extra step.) Similarly, he’d explain squareroots by doing the reverse.
We would also spend long evenings looking at his world atlas to see where different countries and other geographic areas were located. I still had enough vision to, with some difficulty, follow his finger along the maps.
When I got older, I had to catch up on reading, as this was one of my weaker subjects, mostly because I didn’t like the fact that I had to read Braille. My father encouraged me, well more like forced me, to do extra reading at home. One memory I have is of me reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in Dutch when I was about eleven. To show me that he, too, was taking up a challenge, he read the book in its original English. I am currently listening to the audiobook in English on Apple Books.
In short, my father nurtured my intellectual side. Currently, I much more value my creative side, which my mother nurtured (a little). Still, my memories of doing academics with my father are mostly good.
A Multitude of Musings 
This is precisely why children need two parents (one of each gender) to give them the best chance at a balanced upbringing.
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That wasn’t my point and to be honest, I don’t feel that I got a balanced upbringing. Besides, I don’t think I agree with you either. I mean, it’s not that men can’t be creative or women can’t be intellectual.
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I think we’re both misunderstanding each other.
No parents are perfect and every family has to decide what works best for them. My husband and I both, at times, had the responsibility of getting the kids off to school. Both of us helped with homework, were involved in their various activities (when asked) and still cheer their victories now that they are adults.
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I am so happy both you and your husband support your children and complement each other in such a wonderful way! I also do get you wanted to share that a traditional family unit with a father and mother is (usually) best for a child, something I am not 100% sure I agree with. That could’ve been the fact that my upbringing, while traditional in the sense that I had a mother and father who stayed together (still are married) throughout my childhood, was far from ideal.
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Thanks for sharing your memories of your dad Astrid. A father who believes in you and challenges you to become better is such an asset.
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I agree. That being said, as I got older, I did feel very much pressured to meet expectations I couldn’t really meet.
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That is very unfair on children.
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It sounds like your father taught you a lot and was a great encouragement. x
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Thank you. He certainly taught me many academic skills.
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Thank you for sharing your childhood memories with us Astrid. Your father certainly taught you some great academic skills.
I disagree with My Life in Our Father’s World where she says kids need both parents ‘one of each gender’ for a balanced upbringing.
What total rubbish. x
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I agree with you. I do know that the author of that blog is a conservative Christian, so she believes that the only God-approved family is one led by a father and mother. This may or may not be the case – I’m not God, so I don’t know and the Bible can be read in many ways -, but to bring balanced upbringing into this, is rather off. Like I said, I did not necessarily get a balanced upbringing and I did grow up with a father and mother who remained together my entire life so far. As a (progressive) Christian myself, I try to have my blog be a place where people from varying walks of life can come. This does include people I disagree with.
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Exactly, well said Astrid. Have a lovely evening.
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