I held her hand for a while and she excused herself. I let her go. A question went buzzing in my head. "What is the meaning of a father? What does it mean to be a parent?" Here are two human beings with no biological relationship and yet so connected with each other. Here is a family that has the wife, the husband and the child connected only through humanity and compassion and nothing more and they sound more like a family than any other I know.

Having babies doesnt make anyone a father or a parent. "Father" is a title you take on when you are accountable for a child's nurture. It's a position you don when you commit yourself to give a child a better platform than what it already has and is capable of creating for itself under the given cirucmstances. It is a responsibility you take on without anyone imposing on you. That is who a father is.

A child may not see it that way. A child might be thinking that it's the father's "duty" and "responsibility" to do stuff for it. But, in reality it is not. The child may simply be abandoned and left to survive on its own. Or the child maybe neglected and left to its own methods to learn and grow. So, every bit of compassion that a parent shows to a child, is a self imposed accountability and responsibility. Its a bonus, a gift, something it received out of a commitment of another human being. When this is recognized, the child bonds with the parent. Otherwise the bonding is incomplete. All that a child can do is to be grateful and give back the compassion and love shown by a parent. That is the foundation on which a family stands.