Diary Of A Single Dad Penned By Varun Badola

Diary Of A Single Dad Penned By Varun Badola

I have talked many times about single moms on the blog and my open talk with @Jaibala Rao, a blogger and a single mom received many brickbats and support too from everywhere.  I also feel that while we are seeing an increasing of single parents there is a very over-looked aspect of parenting i.e. the perspective of a single father. Single parents overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges every day and I thought why not understand a man’s perspective on this, which is as of now is conditioned to be a task relegated to womenfolk?

Varun Badola, who is playing the role of Amber Sharma — a single dad to an ambitious 24-year-old Niya – in Sony Entertainment Television’s newest offering Mere Dad Ki Dulhan, writes on why it is important to hear the man’s perspective as well.

He writes…

When children want a parent to confide in, they usually turn to their mothers. Mothers are usually the secret keepers in the house while fathers are the disciplinarians. But what happens to children who are deprived of their mother’s love? In cases where the father have to play the role of both the parents, he has to learn how to be the strict parent and their friend at the same time. Before I played the role of a single dad onscreen, I never knew what being a single dad entailed. But after essaying the role for a few days itself, I can safely say that they are the unsung heroes. For me, this Day has provided a platform to consciously evaluate the challenges involved in being a single parent. Being a single dad on screen or in real life gives any man a new perspective in life as well as a great lesson on how to handle parenting challenges.

Well, nothing can fully prepare you for raising your children as a single dad. But let’s just say that balancing the roles of both mom and dad is the toughest job that you will ever love. Fathers are no longer unsupportive of their children’s choices to make the story dramatic, instead they confide in each other like friends. From attending their parent teacher meetings to helping them making science projects, single fathers care about their children’s futures like they care about their own job.

In real life, Rajeshwari and me(Varun Badola) are raising our son where we can be his parent and his confidante too. I hope this show will make people realize the plight, as well as the strength of single dads, and give them the respect and love they deserve. And even though I might not be a single father in real life, I support and celebrate them whole-heartedly.

Life is not always a bed of roses, facing the realities of life and still being able to find happiness in each other, Amber and Niya also lost their wife and mother, but they still found a way to move on from this great loss and be happy too. A lot of times, while in the character, I imagine myself to be the hero of the Will Smith film, The Pursuit of Happiness, where he plays the single father of a boy. In the show, while the father and the daughter don’t share a conventional relationship, they are emotionally inter-dependent and have found solace in each other’s company. She is his everything and he can’t imagine life without her.

I hope this post will encourage other fathers to share their perspective too. Single parenting is not only a gigantic responsibility but can get lonely too. Would love to hear from you dads and moms out there who are struggling with this. Maybe we can create our own support system.