THE SHATTERED DREAMS OF MY FATHER

My father, when he was at my age pretty much knew what he wanted to do in future. But a boy from a very little village in Accra and a son of a traditional ruler with ten other siblings, his career train veered off a little bit from its tracks.

But as it is said, every responsible person has two different dreams at two different stages of his/her life. The first dream is his/her career and the second is his/her plan for his/her family. Thus what his/her spouse should be doing and the career of his/her children.

My dad was that type of a person. He had a plan for his family and him being just a little over an inch far from his career target, was very careful, anxious and more than determined to get it right the second time.

Well, my dad’s plan for his family was pretty much accomplished until me; the last born changed the course with which the boat was being steered.

I wouldn’t want to say I was or is the black sheep or the person who disappointed my dad the most. Talk of mum who did not visit my dad for five absolute years when he was transferred to Kumasi. What about his eldest son, who fathered three children right after junior high school with two different women. Or my mum’s eldest son whom my great dad treated as his own, what did he do? Hmmm, he fathered a son and he didn’t tell his mum or any of his relatives until the mother of the one year old took him to DOVSU for not paying for child support. The eldest of both my mum and my dad hasn’t done any outrageous thing yet, perhaps the most disappointing thing he did was to fail Elective Mathematics, a very important subject for the course he pursued at school, hence inhibiting him from going to college that year, he eventually did the following year.

The one I come after was the star among all of my dad and mum’s children. He is intelligent, actually he has the best grades in the family but his problem was laziness with food. He barely cooks anything, even if it’s just for himself. When he went to college, he barely ate which resulted in medical complications prompting a surgery which really put my family into much emotional and psychological turmoil.

Though all my siblings have failed and disappointed my dad, in recent times they have impressed him. The one who was dragged to DOVSU is now a happily married man, the one who failed his Elective Mathematics is now a banker, Mr. No Eating is now into real estate and the JHS graduate with three children is now an amateur movie director or so I heard. I must confess I’m not in much communication with him lately. My mum too has won my dad’s love all over again. So well, it seems my dad’s plan and second dream of a stable life for his children is right on track.

But, oh yeah, there is a BUT, buts are always the negative. The problem is now with me; the last born, the last hurdle to be jumped by my dad to cross the finishing line. Actually, he thought he had done that when I went to Senior High School and was doing well as a business student. My dad always wanted me to be an accountant and so my decision to go to the Ghana Institute of Journalism was a shock and a mind bugling decision to him.

He just couldn’t comprehend the idea of me wanting to divert to journalism; a profession that do not pay. Nobody has done journalism in both my nuclear and extended families. My family is an old fashioned one in career choices I must say. They believed that careers are like being a Doctor, Lawyer, Banker, Teacher or an Accountant; you know those kinds of old fashioned office-oriented careers.

In my family, these kinds of media oriented careers are dreadful grounds. I can still remember the resounding NO I got from my mum when I told her I wanted to be an actor.

Though my dad is now fully aware that I have shattered his dreams of being an accountant’s dad, he, as a modern dad, he is in full support of my choice of career and I really hope to do good as a broadcast journalist so that I can give the best dad in the whole wide world a gargantuan consolation price. He is a shattered dream dad but a proud one of course.

By: Andrew Tetteh