A SWIMMING HALF-SEED FROM A FATHER approaches and merges with a half-seed from a mother to form a complete seed of a new life incarnation. The merger in that temple of miraculous synergy that we call the womb. And the living seed grows for three quarters of a year in that same womb, sharing the mother's lifeblood, until it gets born into the world to breathe its own life. The mother cannot but feel intimately and intensely the whole growth process -- as in "feel na feel" -- until the climax of it all, the indescribable pain, glory and ecstasy of childbirth. That intimate bond would naturally have a strong momentum: the mother, feeling a new vacuum within her own body, hugs in the infant very tightly for a long extended moment and has the natural drive to extend that hug forever. And the father? He wants to hug them both.

          Yes, he wants to hug his wife, his dearly beloved Lifepartner who had just gone through an ordeal which he could share only vicariously, and with whom he had just celebrated receiving a new longterm responsibility and gift. He wants to hug his little baby who fulfills his natural drive for personal fulfillment and for self extension, the fragile one who seems to ask everyone around for love and protection. But what does he feel of his biological bond with that baby based on his own physical experience of the role he had played in bringing forth this miracle of life into the world? What can he recall by way of a direct role? The chores he had to perform while his wife was pregnant and indisposed? No, the most direct physical role he ever can remember is the orgasm that he had which planted the swimming half-seed. If there had been a whole series of such glorious moments before his wife missed a period, he can no longer possibly tell which ejaculation did it. And, really honestly now, during such moments of heavenly physical pleasure, it was very unlikely that the matter of begetting, the possibility of fatherhood, ever crosses his mind! And so he wants to hug her wife all the more tightly. And, of course, the baby, too.

          Between the two parents, the mother has the momentum and natural instinct for closer physical intimacy with the child, especially with months or possibly even years of breastfeeding as next stage in the sequence. She has been with the baby for all those prenatal months, aware of the baby's growth and motions all that time; he could only relate to her "growing tummy" and with memories of his earlier orgasms inside her body when they, about nine months before, enjoyed the highest physical expression of their intimacy, love and life-partnership.

          The discrepancy is real. But it doesn't have to be absolute and permanent. The baby is now out of the womb. While the father can never breastfeed any baby, he can immediately start the physical bonding by giving his tender loving touches and gentle rubs often, as tender as his often crude physical ways can be tempered and trained by affection and determined self-control. A father can consciously take time to make faces and "beautiful eyes" at his baby whenever he can, and get this baby to identify his face, his touch, and the sound of his voice fully with his love. Of course, he can choose to read the newspaper or talk on the cellphone while his wife breastfeeds, and channel all his love for the baby through earning more and more money for the family, but that obviously won't help diminish the discrepancy in physical bonding. He would have then chosen to allow his own role to be boxed as that of "financier" and, probably, also as "disciplinarian" -- to be thanked and feared by his children while they feel much closer to Mom. No father deserves to do that to himself or be allowed by his wife to do that to himself.

          As soon as the baby is born and throughout the ensuing childhood, adolescence and even adulthood, the father can play about as many roles as the mother can in relating directly with his child (their child forever) physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. After all, between the two parents, it should neither be a contest nor a defeatist overreaction to the prenatal physical discrepancy, but a parental teamwork to anchor and lead a wholesome family synergy and security. Fatherhood can only be fully enjoyed or appreciated within this warm-home framework.

          Happy Father's Day, everyone! Yes, to every father and every one who loves fathers.