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That simple, hyperbolic comment, said in passing, by Dad, turned the boy’s attitude around.

announcing that there was a good chance he’d grow up to become Chinese! A quick word with his mother revealed that during the vacation, when Dad was around to spend days with the boy, he told his son that when he grew up, he will be living in a world where everyone speaks Chinese. That simple, hyperbolic comment, said in passing, by Dad, turned the boy’s attitude around.

It started me wondering: Do dads have more infuence than even mums who stay home to raise the children? Is patriarchy so ingrained in our collective DNA that however much power, autonomy and control women succeed in wresting for themselves, our children continue to instinctually believe Dad’s word is law? And, if that’s true, how dangerous is it that so many of us “supportive” wives of “busy” husbands allow them to parent only on weekends?

Sabotage?

When Peter, the son of a close personal friend, started learning Mandarin with me at 12 years old, his mother was concerned. With a schedule already packed with school and sport, she felt it was a non-essential burden to put on him.

She had felt so strongly about this that she’d actively tried to dissuade him – and tried to have me dissuade him. And, like a good friend, I tried, pointing out that he was starting fairly late, at the time when he was entering secondary school and the workload would already be building.

But the boy was determined because his father’s view was that Mandarin was going to be critical in the world he would enter as an adult. And he believed his father was right. All of Mum’s hand-wringing did nothing to dissuade him.

Increasingly, I am meeting mothers who confess to having less control over their children’s academia than publicly acknowledged. From the choice of school to the range of extracurricular activities the child engages in, dads seem to be gaining a foothold on being the decision-maker. A close friend of mine always complained that her husband, who travelled more than he was home, would (when in residence) swoop in and undo all the parenting she did while he was away with a simple comment, a snort in derision or even a raised eyebrow. For example:

1 She’d insist on vegetables and fruit daily. Dad and son would giggle and fnd ways to feed them to the cat. She says this form of sabotage does not happen when Dad is not around.

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