How to Be a Good Father to Your Children
To explain what I feel a good father should be, I must first point out some negative things and hope that they will not only alarm you who are reading this text but also give you a better idea of what we are up against. Otherwise stated, to define a good father, I feel it’s necessary to follow the path of the parental figure has traveled in our society over the years.
Parent’s Purpose
One could argue that the alarmists have focused blame on what’s wrong with our youth and pointed to the parental figures in the home as the culprits, in many cases. While this may have been done many times for different reasons, it is extremely appropriate, at this time, to examine the impact of fathering in our youth’s culture.
Ask anyone on the street today what a good father is, and unless you’re only polling a group of people who have a similar world view on the need for strong parent figures, you may be shocked by some of the responses. They might tell us that the father is the one who usually tried to get the sympathy of the other family members and especially the attention of his wife. He may go about this in a childish manner, begging for attention. TV sitcoms and movies have set this as standard expectations for the father figure in recent years.
Of course, everything cannot be blamed on television. The liberalization of our society has perverted the idea of leadership and strength, lampooning it to the point that we’ve been softened as a society, as most people avoid the lead role. Rarely is a genuine person of character with positive leadership skills elected to be our public officials. We can say the same fore the father image, as well. If we see a strong-charactered, God-fearing head of a household reflected in real life or in fiction, we will immediately come to the conclusion: he is going to scar his children by his domineering personality and make the some type of servile individuals for the rest of their lives.
I say this is not so! The only way one learns true leadership and strength early in life is by example. Unfortunately, we have lost almost all of our examples as far as fatherly leadership is concerned, so there is no one to perpetuate this image. No young man with a weak father figure can identify with the strong paternal image, and so he doen’t truly know what a real man is. He may see dad refusing many responsibilities and neglect his family in many other ways, only for the good mother to be left to do it all.
Christian Youth Home
I am sure that at this time you are wondering if I am ever going to get around to telling you what I think a good father is. No doubt, by describing the deficiencies of a bad father, I am telling you what a good father is. Certainly, the good father is the opposite of the weak and cowardly, irresponsible father. I would much rather see a strong-character, righteous man walk by his children, and in doing so, observe them somewhat flinching as they became fearful that he might just swat them, then see the reaction of most children to their father today. Maybe I’m a bit old fashioned, but I really feel children of all ages should have a type of fearful respect for their fathers: not because he is going to harm them physically, but because they have been brought up to the point that they dread him giving them even a glance of disdain.
Protecting your child in a seductive world
The good father is involved in the lives of their children, doing the things we typically image father doing with child. Things such as playing catch with his son, taking him fishing, having that special bond with his daughter, and being strong yet sympathetic figure. He can be all of these things and at the same time, be a true example and the leader of his family. He has to take the helm of leadership and guide the household through the storms it is going to face as the years go by.
