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Fathers play a critical role in the wellbeing of families. In Kenya, most families are headed by men, who also double up as the sole bread winners in many instances.

All too often, fathers sacrifice their own comfort and wellbeing to ensure that their families progress economically. They invest their time, energy and money to secure the future and the greater good of their families.

It, therefore, goes without saying that they literally carry the future of the country on their shoulders given that the family unit is the foundation of the State.

In discharging that noble role of father, they also act as role models to their children of both gender, showing them, through their actions, what it takes to engender progress at the personal and collective level. In so doing, they provide a template from which future generations learn how to lift themselves up by the bootstraps. It is, therefore, not too much to say that through their action, they mould the future of humanity.

Unfortunately, however, fathers are seldom ever given the befitting appreciation, either because they spend too much time away fending for their families or because they are judged more by the flaws in their character than in their contribution to the betterment of their families and the community. Instead, they are often vilified, labeled and judged, and ultimately isolated, first by their immediate families and, depending on how they conducted themselves publicly, by the society.

Yet, there is need to better appreciate the work that fathers do to improve the welfare of their families and societies. In many instances, fathers offer themselves for leadership roles over and above their commitment as providers. They think and work for the collective good of humanity, often at a great cost to themselves.

There is need to appreciate and acknowledge that society would be worse off without fathers. Once this self-evident truth becomes accepted, then the next logical step would be to celebrate fathers whenever opportunity presents itself, not just on Father’s Day. Kenya, in particular, has a problem in the way children treat their fathers once their parents grow old.

There is a trend, which could be the result of unconscious bias, of favouring mothers over fathers in resource allocation. This is a trend that society needs to re-examine and re-situate fathers as the pillars of the family and ultimately the society.