The title of this article may seem cliché but I really don't think folks truly grasp the reality the phrase holds. At the time of this post, I have been a father just a little over three months and with every passing day I realize more and more just how crucial of a role fatherhood is.





In this short time, I have discovered--surprising to no one--that being a father is no joke. I mean, I knew going in things were not going to be a walk in the park. I anticipated my sleep time being cut short by fusses and grunts. I had prepared my mind to expect getting pissed and spit up on. I had already sucked it up and said my tearful goodbyes to one of my greatest loves--disposable income. I even let sink in the statement a lot of baby articles declare tongue-in-cheek, "your life is over."

No doubt the task is challenging and occasionally draining but at the same time, this period where all my son is doing is sleeping, eating and pooping, is the single most easiest period in fatherhood.





Why? Because at this point in time, the parents do all the decision making for the little poop machine. We choose what he wears, we choose what he eats, what he sleeps in, what he listens to, what he can play with. He just sits there, says "goo goo gah gah" and accepts it. As time goes by and he can start walking, talking, thinking and deciding for himself, that's when you have your work cut out for you.





This is when the keyword "job" really comes into play. And that's the way all men should embed being a father into their mindset--a job. The most important job a man can do. Fatherhood can not be easily summed up as "takin' care of a kid". It's much bigger than that, and I'm talking on a global level. Parents are shaping the future generation through shaping their children. Mothers and fathers are shaping the world.





Let me break it down for you by asking a question: What is the worst thing in the world? Now a lot of answers should rush through your noggin. Some would say murder, others would say greed or racism. Political corruption and deception. War, crime, drugs. We can go on and on listing all kinds of crappy things. But all of these things are just branches on a tree. The answer is--to put it lightly--crappy people. That's the tree, the root and everything in between. All of society's ills and atrocities are due to the existence of crappy people.





There's actually a finite number of pages!!?





And crappy people are only crappy because they directly or indirectly were brought up to be crappy by their parents. More often than not it's mommy and daddy who are at fault. If you go down a list of the deadliest and worst criminals or just look on the 5 o'clock news and see some ratchet behavior, if you look into the person, you'll see that there is an absence of one or both parents. Particularly the father.

We have men out there who aren't real men because their father wasn't in their lives. You'll see these kinda folks on Maury dancing a jig because the test results said they aren't the father, yet they have 3 other kids back home with 3 other women.





Daddy either is dead, in jail or straight up didn't want anything to do with the child because he was too much of a coward. As for the ones who are actually in the lives of the child, they don't make much of an impact because they don't know how to be a true father. A crappy father is pretty much exactly the same as having no father in your life. I bet a scientific experiment can prove this to be true.





A father who doesn't try or doesn't care about the happenings in their child's life gives off the same effect as if he were to just disappear into thin air. Then we have some dad's who merely transfer all of their bad habits and personality traits onto their offspring, essentially making a clone. Scumbags breeding scumbags in a never-ending cycle. Or even worse, we have those fathers who only appear before their children when they want to abuse them after coming home from the bar or manipulate them, or ridicule them for no reason.





Oh, by the way son, what you see on the TV currently? It's called porn.

(Image:courtesy of TheRAWstory.com)

Others keep a distance and have the television do their job for them while they work long hours and just feed the child. Or they hope the school system, whether private or public, will mold the student with all the qualities and skills they need to be a decent human being. And then they wonder why they aren't respected when the children get older and think for themselves.





The world depends on mothers and fathers to shape their children into upstanding people who as a result go out and improve the world. As corny as it sounds, if parent's simply did their freaking job, the world would be a better place.

The best gift from a Father to his child is education and upbringing.

--Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), Hadith of At-Tirmidhi on the authority of Sa'id Ibn Al-'as.

I swear, this quote above is something either neglected or not truly understood by a good sum of people today. Folks would rather just pool all their efforts on giving their children material goods like the latest gadgets, toys and clothes and THEN a car the second they turn 16 as if these ingredients, when put together, will somehow create an obedient upstanding leader. Hahahaha. Let's be real, we all know what it creates...





Hooters after the club anybody? I got my dads credit card!

Education and upbringing doesn't mean putting your kids in an Ivy League School or even a private Islamic school. Nor does it mean that mom and daddy just regurgitate Islamic facts and have them sit for hours memorizing the Qur'an in Arabic. It's taking the wisdom we learned through Islam and through the Prophet(Peace Be Upon Him) and putting it into daily practice. That's what the Prophet meant by the gift of education and upbringing.