A man sobs while talking about his lost child. This image has been haunting me all week.
• Also read: Grieving a Child: “I’ll never get over it,” says Phil Roy on Marie-Claude Barrette’s podcast
When I saw comedian Phil Roy confiding in Marie-Claude Barrette’s filmed podcast, I broke out. “I will never come back from this, it will always hurt me. I’ll never forget that baby,” confided the man who usually makes us laugh so much.
Seeing this heartbroken father’s confiding self made me think we had some wonderful fathers in Quebec. And I also told myself that we can never stress enough how committed, present and caring the fathers are in Quebec.
It’s hard being a father
“We need to talk about perinatal grief, even if it pains me. […] If things go well, I create scenarios à la Walt Disney. They took all of that from me and it’s hard for me […] Every day parents learn that they will never see their child, that they will never hear the word “dad”.
phew! These deeply touching Phil Roy secrets went straight to my heart.
And it made me think of the song “Les petits pieds de Léa”…
On her 2012 album Without Waiting, Celine Dion sang this great ballad that I can never listen to without crying. Written by Marianne L’Heureux, it tells of the perinatal grief she experienced with her partner Jean-François Perreault.
“Why Lea’s little feet / Never will take their very first steps / Why their little feet won’t grow / Not a trace of little fingers / Or throw kisses / Through the window for your papa / When he goes to work / And that to him that breaks me Heart / To look at the blossoming tree / That he planted to think / To see you grow at the same time.
Admit that in Quebec we talk about motherhood more often when we talk about parenthood. This is normal as it is the mother who is carrying the child. But that’s no reason fathers are all too often sidelined to have their woes and worries wiped out. As if after planting their seed, they no longer had an emotional stake in the children’s lives.
This week on Radio QUB I interviewed Raymond Villeneuve from the Regroupement pour la valorisation de la paternité. He threw me to the ground as he told me how much government services are designed and designed around mothers, as if Quebec children had no fathers.
And he quoted me from a Léger poll, which found that 96% of Quebec parents think services should be focused on father support.
Curiously, on the very day I conducted this interview, the Quebec government sent out a press release titled “Historical Rise in Quebec Parental Insurance Plan Fathers’ Attendance: Week-Long Benefit Utilization Reaches a Peak.”
CONGRATULATIONS CHAMPIONS!
I want to tip my hat to all the sensitive Quebec fathers who put their “experience” into words.
All too often in advertising, we are presented with images of stupid, inadequate fathers who are off the mark.
We’re moving at a snail’s pace when it comes to Quebec series and movies.
And that doesn’t make me laugh at all.
