From your Son
My dad and I don’t speak the same language – no, not literally. I mean he still calls YouTube “The YouTubes” and thinks TikTok is a noise a clock makes. He wears leather sandals to brunch. I wear Nike Dunks. He says, “When I was your age…” and I roll my eyes, but deep down I know he’s kind of the blueprint.
Growing up in the UAE meant I saw my father grind hard. He came here before the skyline did. Before delivery apps, before AC in taxis, before anyone knew what Dubai was becoming. And while I was learning how to style my beard and chase Wi-Fi, he was chasing dreams in 50-degree heat, wearing a tie!
He missed a lot. My football games. My awkward teenage years. Moments he now swears he was “just about to walk in” on. But now, as a grown man, I’m starting to get it. He wasn’t absent, he was building. For me.
And now, he’s got questions. Like:
- “Why haven’t you married yet?”
- “What do you even do on your phone?”
- “Why do you wear trousers with holes in them?”
But the best part is, now he’s trying. He came to my paddle tennis game (called it “digital tennis”), he cheers for the City even though he doesn’t know who Haaland is, and we’ve even started doing Friday breakfasts together. Sometimes we just sit in silence, scrolling on our own phones, but it’s kind of nice. Shared presence is still presence.
Now, from your Father
You grow up thinking you’ll teach your son everything. How to walk, how to fix a lightbulb, how to tie a proper shoelace. But somewhere along the way, the world changed faster than I could Google.
He went from a chubby boy in football kits to a man who gives me tech advice. Sometimes I don’t recognize the man he’s become, but then he laughs, and it sounds exactly like mine.
Living in the UAE meant giving him opportunities I never had. But it also meant sacrifice. I missed birthdays, school plays, late-night conversations about girls and heartbreak. I was busy making sure the fridge was full and his future was safe. I look back and wonder if I could’ve done both better.
Now, he travels solo. He picks women I have no idea how to talk to. And though I pretend I don’t care, I wonder: will he ever marry someone who gets our values? Who understands that family is everything?
Still, I’m learning. To let go. To meet him halfway. To find joy in the few things that still unite us: football matches, grilled meat, gym jokes, car talk, and the occasional argument about who pays the bill.
The Bond Doesn’t Expire, It Evolves
This Father’s Day, whether you’re a son in your 20s or a father in your 50s, take a minute. Book that paddle court. Plan that fishing trip. Eat that shawarma in silence next to each other. Because father-son love isn’t loud, it’s consistent.
It’s a look. A shared inside joke. A hand on the shoulder. A late WhatsApp text:
“Proud of you, habibi.”
So here’s to all the fathers and sons in the UAE still learning how to speak each other’s language, even if it starts with just a match, a drive, or a dad joke that actually lands.
