Having a prominent male figure in a child's life is an extremely important concept. Many children that live today lack a father completely. This puts a huge hole in a child's life. However, there are some kids that live in the world today and have a father. The only problem with some of these kids is that their fathers lack the characteristic and qualities that a "good" father has. This is the case with Amir, in The Kite Runner. It leads me to question, what if Amir had a "quality" father in his life? Would any of the events or decisions that Amir has made so far be changed by the influence of his father?
First, I believe that it is important to list and discuss what qualities a "good" father has. In my opinion, a good father has to be loving and caring. However, the father must also not be afraid to lay down the law, yet still allow some freedom. There is a fine balance here, but it needs to be level for the father to succeed in his role as a parent. To look at the extremes here, a completely loving and caring father would always look after his child and never take his eye of the child. The father would always know where the child is, and whenever something were to go wrong, the father would be one step behind ready to console his child. This father's problem would be that he never allows his child to fix anything on their own. The father in this case would always fix things for the kids. Sometimes kids need to be able to figure things out on their own so that when they grow up they can be more independent. Another father could be one that allows too much freedom to his kids. These kids grow up doing whatever they want whenever. These kids have no discipline and therefore grow up making poor decisions. The problem with this father is his lack of authority and the ability to tell a child what to do and not to do. The third father would be one that is a total dictator and runs the child's lives through telling them what to do every step of the way. There is no questioning this father and he is always right. This father runs the show whichever way he sees fit. The problem with this father is lack of freedom. Looking at these three qualities is a mere example of the qualities of fathers. However, these three are all things that are prevalent in the relationship between Amir and his father, Baba.
When looking at Amir and Baba's father-son relationship we see problems all throughout the first half of the book. We start out the book learning that Amir's mother had died during child birth. With this comes information that Baba partially blames Amir for the death of his wife. Amir has lived all his life incapable of trusting Baba. Trust is another important part of a father son relationship. Trust is either present or not depending on the type of qualities a father has as discussed above. Because Baba blames Amir, Baba lacks the caring aspect that a father should have. This leads to no trust and a withered relationship of the two. Baba has also been seen to give too much freedom to Amir. Baba is generally never home and he doesn't care what Amir does. This has seen Amir get into trouble with him and the boys in his neighborhood. And because Amir does not trust Baba, he cannot go to Baba to talk to him. This is how one characteristic of the father can affect another. Up until the rape of Hassan, this is how Baba acted. He never stood up for Amir or could even sincerely talk to him, this all later changes. When Amir brings the kite home Baba is so proud and starts to appreciate and be accept his son. But when the war breaks out one more thing happens to Baba. He finally takes control of the family and moves himself and Amir to America. It is not until later that we see Baba become a true father, but it can be considered too late. It leads us to wonder, what if Amir had a better father in Baba while growing up?
So what if this was true? Would Amir have grown up differently? We can only question and speculate about this; however we definitely have opinions on this. It is my opinion that if Baba had been more caring of Amir earlier in his life, Amir would have not been afraid to talk to Baba. This is because a sense of trust is now in place. This would have been key for Amir in multiple situations of his life. One would be the encounters that he has had with his friends bullying him. If Amir were not afraid to talk to Baba, Baba would have been informed of the situation and fixed it. Earlier I said that when a parent fixes everything for a child it is bad. However, we already are able to see that in the future Amir is incapable of changing this situation of bullying by himself. In this situation the father should help out. This all leads to the biggest part of the book, the rape. What if Baba had already stopped this bullying? It is possible then that the rape would not have occurred. When looking at how Baba's father-son relationship could have possibly affected the rape, it can be considered that this is all one big stretch. One can say that it is impossible that Baba's status as a father could have affected the rape. However, we must also consider that anything is possible. We see in the world today what a profound impact a father can have on his child's life. In this case, that relationship could have emotionally saved all the people involved in this rape.
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