It takes a special person to be a Dad

Dad- a daughter's first love

Being daddy’s little girl is a joy in itself. The way your father treats you as his eye-candy, the girl he loves most in the world, buys everything for his baby girl without giving it a second thought…all this sounds so sweet and wonderful. 

It is said that the mother is usually the one responsible for the child’s upbringing as the father is busy earning for the welfare of his family but now we are living in a culture where dad is an equal partner in care giving. From day one, dads are encouraged to be changing diapers, giving baths, putting baby to sleep and calming her cries. That presence and effort is the beginning of a very important relationship. It shapes her self-esteem, self-image, confidence and opinions about men in general.

Now the reason of me writing this blog post is a sitcom which I saw couple of days back. Although it was designed to tickle our funny bone but yet, I felt quiet disturbed and hurt while watching it. It was about a father who used the mesmerizing looks of his daughter to scam huge amount of money from young men. What’s pathetic is that the men involved ranged from the wealthy businessmen to the cable wala. And in the end, he married his daughter off to a wealthy foreign-return and vanishes along with the scammed money.

A dad's involvement in his daughter's life is a crucial ingredient in the development of a young woman's self-esteem. Portrayal of such father’s on one of the most viewed Pakistani TV channel is a disgrace…plus the sitcom was supposedly funny !!!  What they on-aired was as cruel as a father slaughtering her daughter or burning her alive. A father’s dignity and vanity towards his daughter was horrendously butchered…I mean how could one even think about such an act???

For many people, maybe I am being a bit too sensitive about it or over-exaggerating it but I am just blabbering out the anger that boiled up while I watched that sitcom. People around me were laughing at the situations and cracking jokes…how could they be so numb??? How could we possibly ignore the encrypted message of discourtesy and disrespect targeted towards women???

What matters in the father-daughter relationship is that, dad seeks to live a life of integrity and honesty, avoiding hypocrisy and admitting his own shortcomings so that she has a realistic and positive example of how to deal with the world.  Has the channel or the actors working in it ever thought that what impacts would such sitcoms have on young girls minds??? They would probably think that mingling with boys to obtain a certain purpose is right because her daddy supports it too and encourages her to make an effort until the guy is head –over-heels, wearing heavy make-up and standing by the bus stand to woo guys is right and its not bad to scam money from someone…he will probably laugh it off.

It’s really not a good state of situations because how a father approaches life will serve as an example for his daughter to build off in her own life, even if she chooses a different view of the world. Such sitcoms and drama serials are getting common day by day. I don’t know where are our moral and ethical values are heading towards? 

For people who don’t know, there is a complaint form present at the PEMRA site where we can lodge complaint against such programs. 

PEMRA Complaint Form

So, if you feel that any program or advertisement is demoralizing our values then don’t just criticize it in your TV lounge; lodge a complaint against it like a responsible citizen. 


Imported from my 2nd Blog: Feminist Me