HOW TO FAIL AS A FATHER On a scale of 1-10, as a parent, my father scored a glaring -6. That’s right. Minus 6. Today, my memory of him has become my guiding light. In almost any situation, all I have to do is to imagine how my dad would have handled it, and then do the opposite. Not that he was a failure. He was in fact a very successful businessman.

He failed Sub B (Grade 2} and never went back to school.
Instead, he started collecting and selling bones and bottles and went on to own four hoses and three shops in his heyday.
In the process, he taught himself to speak, read and write fourteen languages.
Mostly Indian and African languages, but still a feat.

In his lifetime, he married and divorced seven wives, including my mother.
He paid very little attention to his children and seldom spoke to us.
In fact, he rarely spoke to anybody.

At the age of 75 he retired, and for the next fifteen years he made sure that he spent most of his amassed money.

On the rare occasion that he did speak to me……
Well, you be the judge.

 

He started smoking when he was 12-years-old, and for most of his life he smoked thirty cigarettes a day.
When he turned 85 he stopped smoking.

At the age of 89 years and 9 months, on his deathbed with his oxygen tank, he said to me ‘I stopped smoking almost five years ago. It makes no fucking difference.’
Not the kind of advice to give your children?

When I got divorced, he asked me ‘Amicably or inamicably?’
When I responded ‘I’m not quite sure.’ he said, ‘Now I can tell you something that I could have told you a long time ago. All women are bastards. Indian women, Malay women, black women, Christian women, Moslem women, white women, coloured women. They are all fucken bastards.’
Not the kind of advice to give your children?

My mother’s opinion?
‘Seven wives couldn’t all have been wrong.’

Kader Khan
Editor
info@yummie.co.za