Dad’s what I did for love: 4 selfless fathers who stepped up for their kids
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SINGAPORE - Provider, playmate, protector. A father is all this and so much more.
Daddy is a child’s first hero. The one who always has your back, the one who teaches you to take risks, the one who believes you can reach for the stars.
When his children need him, a father who might describe himself as ordinary rises to the occasion with extraordinary acts of bravery. His labour of love requires no reward, save for a smile, a kiss, a hug.
Meet four fathers whose selfless deeds have made a huge impact on their children’s lives.
He started a fathers’ support group in his wayward son’s school
Mr Alex Tham, 49, would sometimes cry in his car when his son Joshua was in Primary 6.
“The teacher called me every day, saying: ‘Mr Tham, Joshua did this, Joshua did that,’” he says of the time when his son regularly misbehaved in school, pulling pranks and skipping school instead of preparing for the PSLE.
“I really felt like a failure. What did I do wrong? Sometimes, I wanted to give up, but I knew I couldn’t – he’s my son,” Mr Tham adds, his voice breaking as he recalls the turbulent years between Primary 3 and Secondary 3.
He quit his job to care for his brain-injured stepson
When Mr Kua Sim Choon takes his stepson out in his wheelchair, passers-by remark how they resemble each other.
“After looking after him for 20 years, how can we not look alike?” quips the affable Mr Kua, 71, in Mandarin.
He helps Mr Lim Joo Phiau, 44, shuffle to the only bedroom in their two-room rental flat in Sengkang and tucks him in for his afternoon nap.
Afraid of needles, but he donated kidney to his daughter
Talk about needles and Mr Sam Foo, 50, winces. Yet he did not hesitate to donate his kidney to his daughter Celest in June 2020.
She was just four years old in 2005 when, without warning, her face became puffy and her urine had bubbles in it. Tests showed she had focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), which meant the filters in her kidneys were scarred and could not filter blood.
While no local figures are available, there are 0.2 to 1.8 cases per 100,000 people worldwide, says head and emeritus consultant Yap Hui Kim from the division of paediatric nephrology, dialysis and renal transplantation in the department of paediatrics at Khoo Teck Puat – National University Children’s Medical Institute within National University Hospital (NUH). She has been seeing Celest, now 22, since she was about five years old.
He sleeps four hours a day to care for special needs son
Muhammad Mustaqim Hazrin was playing at home when he saw his father Hazrin Husain go into the kitchen to pour himself a drink.
Then five years old, he yelled: “Pa.”
Overcome with emotion, Mr Hazrin shed tears of joy. It was the first and only time his son had called out to him.
