What Does Your Dad Do?
“What does your dad do?”
Growing up, it was the question that I dreaded answering.
Like most kids, I grew up believing that my dad could do anything but when I started school, I quickly realised that this wasn’t the case. While my friends had dads who were qualified to work in sanitised clinics and air-conditioned offices, my immigrant dad would come home covered in sweat and dirt. While my friends had ‘fun’ dads who could charm the room with eloquent humour, my dad was the joke with his thick accent and broken English. While my friends wore their dad’s achievements and accolades as a badge of honour, ‘what does your dad do?’ was a question that made me wince with shame.
Growing up, I was always comparing my family to the middle-class majority, and I knew that we fell far behind. We looked different, sounded different, and we prioritised different things. I remember during the school term; my friends would count down the days to the summer holidays. For them, it was six weeks’ worth of fun, games and camping trips with their fun dads. I dreaded those holidays. As both of my parents worked full-time, my dad would take my brother and I to his warehouse in Sydney’s west. We would spend our holidays locked up in a stale room with tutoring and math homework. With nothing but numbers to stimulate our young and restless minds, those six weeks felt like death by a thousand formulas.
For my struggling immigrant dad, being a ‘fun’ dad stood very low on his list of priorities. While I compared and complained in an air-conditioned office, my dad was outside sweeping floors and stacking dangerously heavy boxes. While I bemoaned the crushing burden of long division, Dad bore the brunt of hard and heavy labour. He wasn’t concerned about being ‘fun’ because he was shouldering the responsibility of affording us the education that he never had.
Looking back now, my dad was fun in his own way. There were days when he would spontaneously lift me into his packing trolley and wheel me around the warehouse. One minute we would be shopping for groceries; the next we would be making our big escape from fire-breathing dragons! Some days, Dad would disappear into the warehouse recycling room and return with a carload of rubbish. The next morning, I would wake up to a brand-new castle; skilfully carved out of waste paper and cardboard.
As I reflect on my childhood, I wish I cared less about what others thought of me. Instead of wishing for a ‘white dad’, I wish I had the wisdom to appreciate my dad’s circumstances. I wish I understood the immense challenge of immigration into a country that wasn’t always welcoming. I spent so many years envying other people’s ‘fun’ dads that I so often failed to appreciate the rare but tender moments when my dad took the effort to make me smile.
“What does your Dad do?”
In an exhausted world that measures our worth by our performance; I want to learn to ask better questions. After all, what we do is not always an indication of what we’re like. Our output and achievements are not a reflection of our inner heart and character. Outward success does not necessarily equate to generosity, wisdom or courage.
So, instead of telling you what my dad does, let me tell you what he is like. My dad is a fighter who doesn’t give up. He may not be qualified to work in offices, but he is humble and willing to bear the brunt of hard labour. He may be teased for ‘sounding funny’, but he did not give up on learning how to speak, read and write English so that he could assimilate into Australian culture. My dad is generous and hospitable; he treats people of all social classes with dignity and respect.
My dad makes mistakes, but he fights hard to be humble and to learn from his Heavenly Father. He fought against the need to ‘save face’ when he apologised to his wife and children. He fought against pride when he confessed his need for Jesus. He’s learning to say, ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I love you’, even when such phrases don’t exist in his cultural vocabulary.
My dad is a man of child-like faith, who in retirement, is still choosing to ‘fight the good fight’ for his eternal crown. In a society that sees the elderly as a burden without worth, my dad makes them feel seen and heard. He intentionally planned interstate trips to Brisbane so that he could evangelise to my father-in-law, who by a miracle of grace was baptised in his seventies after a lifetime of ancestral worship.
In Sydney, my dad volunteers in aged care centres and has equipped himself to teach God’s word to seniors at his local church. He recently won a ‘Volunteer of the Year’ award, but he bashfully turned down the accolade because he didn’t want his photo published in the local paper.
“What is your dad like?”
My dad is a fighter; armed with courage, grit, humility and faith. I’m a proud daughter of an immigrant dad and I wear his fighting spirit as my badge of honour.
9 Comments
Michelle A Pajot
This was beautifully written ❤️. It resonated with me in so many ways. Thank you for reminding all of us that God sees our hearts, not our successes.
Heidi
Thanks Michelle for stopping by! I’m so glad that our story resonated with you and that my words was a reminder of our true worth in God – the only judge who matters! If you enjoyed this story, you may appreciate my eBook ‘Lazy Susan’ which is a collection of short stories of a similar theme. It’s free if you subscribe in September: http://heiditai.com/subscribe/ I look forward to hearing what you think if you choose to read it.
Dina
That was a beautiful tribute to your dad!
Heidi
Hi Dina, thanks for stopping by and for reading this tribute! If you enjoyed this story, you may appreciate my eBook ‘Lazy Susan’ which is a collection of short stories of a similar theme. It’s free if you subscribe in September: http://heiditai.com/subscribe/ I look forward to hearing what you think if you choose to read it.
Barbara McKay
Heidi, I stumbled across the story about your Dad, and I loved it. Members of my family were Christian missionaries to China many years ago – Uncle Jack in the 1920’s and my two Aunties, Aunty Betty and Aunty Dorothy in the 1940’s. They were helped to escape by some beautiful Chinese folk when there was a Communist takeover in 1949.. For over 40 years, they would pray for China at the family home in Brisbane. Another cousin also taught them for a number of years – three generations who cared about your country. So I enjoy hearing the story of your Dad and enjoy your writing. I am learning to write – and it’s hard writing my Memoir…but I try.
Heidi
Hi Barbara thanks for stopping by. Your family’s story sounds amazing – thanks for sharing it with me. All the best with your efforts to write a memoir.
Pingback:
Petra
Beautifully written story Heidi! Thanks for sharing. I can relate as I had similar experiences growing up. Whilst I am not coming with a migration background, I felt different than others growing up as my Dad passed away early, so I grew up with just one parent and my Mum compared to other’s Mums was much older, and not cool. I often felt ashamed and wished for a different situation. As you so eloquently described, in hindsight I wish I had had a different appreciation for what she actually did for me and how bringing us up as sole parent must have been incredibly hard. Again, thank you for sharing your story in such a beautiful way.
Lauren Macdonald
Hi Heidi, I loved this post. It resonated with me because I had a similar and yet opposite experience. I had the white Dad. I had the Private School. I had the “fun” times. (My Dad worked very hard too and I cannot fault him how much he fought for what we had but my perception, as child was, like yours, a bit selfishly skewed) In my heart I thought we were so much better than everyone who didn’t have what we had. I was so proud of being ‘elite’.
My experience was unlearning all of that when, as late teens and late adults my whole family turned to Christ. We all had different journeys but a big part of my journey was meeting my new brothers and sisters in Christ at church etc. So many of these humble and wonderful people were less expensively educated, less travelled, less ‘networked in’ and yet so much wiser than me. They had so much character, they oozed the fruit of the Spirit in quiet ways. Ways that shouted so loudly at my prejudice and pride that it hurt sometimes.
I spent the day thinking about my Dad today, which is why I read this particular post. I was thinking about how he had done so many things that at the time I didn’t understand and how grateful I am now. Your Dad sounds like a wonderful, wonderful man. I am glad that you can see now what he was doing for you and what it built in you. I am so thrilled for the people he is serving at the aged care centre that they get to know such a beautiful man of worth who can show them the love of Christ, and I am grateful for your timely blog.
Lots of love, L