Like father, like son

There is a beautiful saying about Dad: a daughter's first love, a son's first hero.

Jackie Chan once said that his son decided not to go into martial arts because he didn't want to be like Brandon Lee who followed in his dad's Bruce's footsteps and was constantly told he was not as good.

The father-daughter relationship (from the father's perspective) is a simpler one. She loves you. You love her. You'd do anything to keep her safe. 

The hero complex between father and son is a tad more complicated. Because heroes do no wrong. Don't get hurt. Nor sick. Nor old. Real life heroes cannot live up to their own legends. National patriots, corporate captains, scientific geniuses and artistic talents all have moments they wish didn't happen. A philandering moment here, an abuse there. 

So how does a boy grow up with someone whom he regards as a hero and as the days pass, the hero becomes simply less so. Not because the heroic feats have ceased, but because the boy know sees more, the good bits and the blemishes. It's inevitable. I count myself lucky in this instance though. Mind you, not by choice but by circumstance. Because I have to travel most weekdays (averaging 180 flights a year), the number of days my boy and I have with each other are more limited. So less chance of him seeing my imperfections. On weekends we engage with each other without being burdened by each other's baggage (which of course due to the absence neither have observed of the other).

All that enabled me to guide, maybe even inspire him, in some ways. Scouting is an obvious one. I was a troop leader. He was too, and a President Scout to boot! I got offered a scholarship and he got a prestigious one, and we both got it from the same Public Service Commission of Singapore.

He's now a man. He's already living away from home, for 4 months now. In fact I am now more often home than he is. As a man, he is now building his own life. And he has already taken a first step into that and significantly away from the path I trod. I do think he's prepared to dream big and take one step back to go two steps forward in order to realize his dream. His dreams, though, are different from mine. I guess this analysis, courtesy of ScienceAlert, provides the empirical evidence of just how far a step he has chosen. I am in management. He has chosen the military life to start with. I wish him all the best.