Better Dads Malaysia: ICAN Fathering Workshop

Better Dads Malaysia (hereinafter referred to as BDM) was founded by Mr. Joshua Hong and Mr. Jason Leong in 2019, and is located in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur. BDM is a non-profit organization dedicated to initiating, leading, and coordinating a nationwide movement for Malaysian fathers to improve the quality of life for their families and children. BDM strives to motivate Malaysian fathers and father figures to enhance their positive self-worth, resilience, emotional intelligence, and self-respect.

BDM has a simple vision, whereby they want to see every child in Malaysia growing up with an involved, committed and responsible father. This is because many fathers nowadays are so preoccupied with work that they fail to provide the necessary amount of love for their children, who require more affection and time from their fathers than anything else. Indeed, when a father spends time with his children, it offers memorable moments that he will remember till the end of his life, and will also provide his children with a positive outlook towards spending time together with their own children in the future. Evidence suggests when this cycle is repeated, male children carry forward a positive attitude to parenting because many men grow up in the same way their father did, regardless of them being a biological or adoptive parent.

In Asian societies, fathers are often seen predominantly as the providers of food and shelter. Fathers frequently want to succeed at work and earn a large salary, without realising that their interactions with their children and spouse may suffer as a result. BDM strives to raise fathers’ awareness and develop a movement to help them become better fathers. Men are often not considered natural nurturers, thus they do not naturally spend resources and time to be better fathers. According to Ikhwan Nazaruddin (2020), BDM does not dismiss the mothers role, but emphasises the need of supporting the “queen of the house”. A number of studies demonstrate that father absence is a factor in many juvenile criminal cases and social problems. This often occurs because they are thirsty for love and tend to look for it from an outsider, as they do not receive the love they seek from their own father (Kofler-Westergren et al., 2010). In order to improve the health of young people, both co-founders decided to address the fundamental cause, the father, and this led to the idea of establishing Better Dads Malaysia. Their aim is to inspire and equip men to intentionally and proactively involve fathers in their children’s lives in order to transform organisations, communities, and the individual. Many programmes have been created by BDM to educate fathers on how to be better fathers and increase awareness and advocate for active fathering, because although there are no perfect fathers in this world, it is possible to improve and become better day by day. One such program that BDM has organized in order to spread awareness to fathers, and father figures, is the ICAN Fathering Workshop.

ICAN stands for Involvement, Consistency, Awareness and Nurturance. According to research on teen parenting, those who are “most communicative with their teens” have the “greatest fathering satisfaction.” It can prove very difficult to communicate with our teenagers if this bond is not established when children are young. This workshop highlights the significance of father-child relationships and offers practical advice on how to speak to a child in a nurturing manner. After all, every child deserves a father who cares enough about them to help them grow into happy, confident, and resilient adults. The National Board of Population and Family Development (LPPKN), which is part of the Ministry of Women, Family, and Community Development, provides assistance and financing to BDM. BDM has been enthusiastic and committed to implementing programmes such as training and workshops for fathers in the public and commercial sectors. Apart from programmes for fathers, they also offer programmes for parents to improve their parenting skills so that their children can grow up happy. They have also created mental health programmes, including talks or workshops, to assist people, particularly parents, in managing their mental health intelligently so that it does not negatively impact on their children.

Both co-founders, Mr. Joshua Hong and Mr. Jason Leong, have known one another for a long time working with young people and in the field of community engagement. They both have unique experiences and stories, and as a result of this, they founded BDM in 2019. Mr. Joshua has been working with young people for over 20 years, and has previous experience working with religious institutions, the Youth Council, and a variety of other organisations. Mr. Jason, however, has worked in many categories of men’s problems, such as husbands, teenagers, and others, but had not dealt with many father-related issues until BDM. BDM uses Singapore as a role model for its actions, since the Singaporean government is very supportive, both financially and physically, of family issues in its society, and believes the entire country will collapse and be destroyed if the family unit is not robust in all aspects. One of the BDM co-founders actually worked with a Singapore NGO on spreading awareness and saw how their hard work brought them achievement, which led to trying to emulate their success in Malaysia. BDM is committed to diversity and tolerance, too, and works with Malaysians of all races, including Malay, Chinese, and Indians, and promotes no particular religious agenda.

Interview

Interviewees
Mr. Joshua Hong (Co-founder of BDM)
Mr. Jason Leong (Co-founder of BDM)

Q: What made you want to establish BDM?

Mr. Joshua: There was a moment when I realised that today’s youth are not like the generations of our fathers and grandfathers. You guys interact and respond to things in different ways. I joined the fathering movement in Singapore a few years ago, which was organised by Dads for Life, to witness the impact of their movement on father-child relationships. Finally, I could see that their movement was changing every father who joined their programmes to be better than before. So I decided to implement this in Malaysia to offer every father an opportunity to be a better father in the future.

Mr. Jason: For me, I came from a family in crisis, and I don’t have a good father, so I’m interested about how one can, or may be a better father. According to the findings of my research, every man grows up in the same way as his father. It’s fine if you have a positive fathering experience since you will pass this on to your children, but what if you have a bad fathering experience? The fathering experience is similar to having a habit where a bad habit cannot be removed by simply removing it, but it may be destroyed by replacing it with good behaviour. You must replace bad parenting or bad fathering with a better fathering model. That is why we began our research on fathering and established BDM to assist all fathers around the country in making a change to be a better dad.

Q: What is the age range of those that usually participate in the workshop and what kind of fathers do you allow to join?

Mr. Jason: Since the inception of BDM, the majority of participants have been younger dads aged 30 to 40. Less than 10% of grandfathers are joining us, and 5% are soon-to-be fathers in their late twenties. Participants in their early 30s are usually handling a baby or have a child who is already a teenager. They basically can’t control their teenagers and come to our workshop to strengthen their fathering abilities so they can control them better.

Q: How often are the ICAN Fathering Workshops held?

Mr. Joshua & Mr. Jason: During the Covid-19 pandemic, we held it once a month but moved the platform from face-to-face to online. Since we began BDM in Malaysia, we have had six trainers and run it in three languages: Chinese, English, and Bahasa Melayu. We are currently steadily recovering and resuming the workshops face-to-face.

Q: How many people usually participate in the workshop?

Mr. Joshua: ICAN Fathering Workshop will not exceed 30 participants since the ideal number of participants is 24 people and it is easier to conduct a discussion when we divide that into 4 or 5 groups. This is also because it may well be uncomfortable for guys to converse with a number of strangers gathered together.

Mr. Jason: Even the LPPKN’s Head Director was shocked when they saw how many fathers we got to join our programme. We give advice on the need to engage men and women separately when discussing major problems such as parenthood and many men will sign up when they see that our programme is exclusively for them.

Q: Have any kids ever come up to you and said bad things about their father, and ask what they would have to do better when they become a father?

Mr. Joshua & Mr. Jason: Although not many young people have come to us in the past, we generally advocate for young people to have a better relationship with their fathers and/or mothers.

Q: Why does BDM focus on fathers instead of parenting as a whole?

Mr. Joshua: Lot of Asian fathers think that earning money, working very hard and providing for the family are the only roles for fathers. So, they outsource the nurturing to their wives and never get involved with their children because they are too busy with work. Our goal through the workshop is to tell them that their participation and involvement will change their children from every aspect. We keep saying that there is no perfect father but you must work hard to be better and we believe BDM’s vision can be achieved.

Mr. Jason: We are more likely to work with fathers who are still accompanied by their partner. Because fathers are at the head of the stream, if they can handle it, the likelihood of becoming a single father, absent father, or other will diminish. Many of these issues can be avoided if we address the underlying causes, such as bad fathering. We teach that spending time with children is vital since fathers can often be physically present in the house but not emotionally there, especially if he does not speak to his children and instead stares at his phone, watches television, or does other things. This norm needs to change because both a physical and emotional presence is important to make children happy and feel affection from their father.

Q: You state that one reason children often despise their father is due to generational trauma and maybe the father instilling a harmful trait in his own children. Is there a part or segment in the workshop that helps to unlearn that destructive trait?

Mr. Joshua: We do discuss in one section of the session that it is never easy and that the degree of trauma varies. We discuss with the participants a reconciliation with their own father and encourage some study on how their own fathering behaviour was influenced by their father and the need to reassess. With generational trauma and toxic qualities, in particular, it depends on you to either repeat them or make the changes necessary to become a better father.

Mr. Jason: One of the reasons your father is like that is that he probably lacked a good father himself and the good experience needed to treat you better. There is a fallacy passed down from generation to generation, such as from your grandfather, that the responsibility of a father is merely to provide for the family. BDM encourages fathers to modify their behaviour and rebuild their relationship with their grandfather in order to display it to their children. It is a difficult habit to break, but I believe that if they are aware of the repercussions, every man will attempt to break it and avoid repeating it with future generations.

Q: What do you find the most rewarding about being involved in the BDM, and especially the ICAN Fathering Workshop?

Mr Joshua: BDM’s mission is to raise awareness and advocate for active fathering. So, for me, the most fulfilling aspect of being involved in BDM is watching the father take it seriously and desiring to be a better parent, as well as helping to spread the message to others.

Q: After the workshop, is it hard for fathers to reconnect with their children?

Mr. Joshua: It really depends. After the workshop, we will add them to a WhatsApp group or Zoom meeting to provide support when necessary. Once in a while, these fathers will encounter problems that they will share in the group or text us about directly. In this way, every father can share their experience and get suggestions from other fathers on how to handle it. However, even though there’s support, it all depends on the father whether or not he puts in the effort for his children. We are also making an effort to make a new project called Dads at Work because we understand that men have to wear a lot of hats, be it as a father, an employee or a husband etc. We feel that it is important to provide working men with a range of practical and pragmatic resources, from leadership programs to training, and these will be published online so that fathers can access it whenever they need it. It’s also free of charge, helps them with their work and allows them to invest more time in their children.

Q: Why do you think these kinds of workshops are important?

Mr. Joshua: A lot of men come to the conclusion that they want to be a better father, but the main challenge that they always seem to face is ‘how?’. From my observations, when it comes to work or finding money, they’re often very creative, but in terms of parenting or fathering they seem to simply run out of ideas. That’s why we think that workshops play a role in helping them gain the know-how for being a good father.

Q: Is there any other activity that you’ve done recently to strengthen father-child bonds in Malaysian families?

Mr. Joshua: Last month in June, we conducted a Barista workshop. It’s not exactly done in a professional setting, but it’s a session where fathers can make coffee or bake cookies with their child. We deliberately designed these workshops so mothers could take a rest day and the father and child could spend time together. For example, there are some parts of the coffee machine that the children can’t reach, and some kids have creative or innovative ways of baking, so they must cooperate together in order to make it work.

Q: Do you think that fathering is crucial to the development of the country?

Mr. Jason: The right father will raise the right children and this will therefore lead to the right development of the country. It must be the responsibility of the parent to make sure their kids are raised well and the country depends on these fathers to make sure that their children become good adults. Whether they become good leaders or followers in the country is really up to how they raise them.

Reflections

During the interview, one question that the founders asked us was “What good memory do you share with your own father?” It definitely gave us a shock because we weren’t expecting, or ready for, that kind of question. To be fair, it did make us reflect as Malaysian kids who grew up with equally Malaysian fathers, and that simple question, even after some time pondering, was undoubtedly hard to answer. I (Balqis) only answered that I remembered one point in life when my own father came home and kissed me on the forehead at 3.00 am after he had spent 3 months away with minimal contact in New Zealand. However, Danieal couldn’t even answer it due to his strained relationship with his father, and only briefly mentioned that he couldn’t name one. That certainly made us think, because what are the odds on us both finding out that we both have few or no good memories of moments with our fathers. Considering how it impacted our own lives, we have to conclude there are plenty of other children, teenagers and young adults, or even older adults in Malaysia who would definitely struggle to answer that question too.

It wouldn’t be wrong to surmise that plenty of fathers in this country think that fulfilling basic necessities and covering their financial needs is enough for them to be good parents. Maybe that thinking was OK back when the country was colonized, or after achieving independence where ensuring the children’s survival was considered enough. But times have changed, and with the change of generations, there’s other needs to be met in order to raise children well. People who choose to have children must not only be financially prepared, but also mentally, emotionally and physically prepared as well, or they’ll end up raising children who will grow up with multiple issues, like feelings of abandonment or mental health issues. If they don’t break that cycle from their parents, it will continue on to their children as well. Hence, generational trauma. We shouldn’t have children simply because we think it’s socially the norm, where ‘everyone does it so I should too”, but instead reflect whether we are a good fit to raise them. It’s also important to be aware of how you were raised as a child and detect any toxic behaviours you think are detrimental to your children and actively unlearn them.

This kind of issue is undoubtedly one that is on-going in Malaysia and deserves to have some light shed on it. Better Dads Malaysia is one of the few, if not only, organizations that focuses on how important fathering is and an issue that needs to be tackled full-on. Although Better Dads Malaysia has only been established a few years, it has done a tremendous job in raising awareness towards healthy fathering. The workshops are definitely a great idea and, hopefully, will grow to be more well known in the near future. With this in mind, we hope that Better Dads will be successful in continuing to inspire more Malaysian fathers to be the best version of themselves for their children and to raise them in a healthy, loving environment.

References

Ikhwan Nazaruddin. (2020, August 28). Better Dads Malaysia: For A Better Nation. Retrieved from https://www.makchic.com/better-dads-malaysia-for-a-better-nation/

Kofler-Westergren, B., Klopf, J., & Mitterauer, B. (2010) Juvenile Delinquency: Father Absence, Conduct Disorder, and Substance Abuse as Risk Factor Triad. International Journal of

Forensic Mental Health, 9(1), 33 — 43. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/244889270-Juvenile-Delinquency-Father_-Absence-Conduct-Disorder-and-Substance-Abuse-as-Risk-Factor-Triad

Researchers

Hi, my name is Muhammad Danieal Bin A. Razak and I’m a second year student in the Anthropology and Sociology department at Universiti Sains Malaysia. I am a Malay and have 3 siblings of which I am the middle one. I was born and live in Johor, and I love doing research about family and LGBTQ matters. It may sound a bit weird, but I love to hear about their problems and the decisions they have to make. My ambition is to become a teacher, and even though it’s outside of my course, I will try my best. The thing I love most is going out, or on holiday, with my friends to help release tension and relax.

Hello! My name is Balqis Maesara Jamail and I am a second year Anthropology and Sociology student at Universiti Sains Malaysia. I’m of Malay and Filipino descent and I’m the 10th out of 12 children. I’m also queer. I’m currently pursuing a HR internship in Kuala Lumpur during my semester break. I love immersing myself in books, anime, cosplay, Studio Ghibli films, games, looking for random cafes around KL, and romanticizing life. I’m diagnosed with BPD and GAD and therefore big on mental health awareness. I also have 8 cats and love them more than anything in the world!