Trendy Tots

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. To that end it is that I will unveil the negative trends and portrayals of fathers we’ve seen through 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 do this with some type of childish action or even some form of hypochondriac procedure. TV sitcoms and movies have set this as standard expectations for the father figure in recent years.

Of course, we can’t blame everything on TV. Through the years, our society has become liberal to the degree where strong leadership is feared by many, and at the best, avoided by the vast majority. Very seldom do we see a person who is reflecting real, strong, positive leadership ability being elected to a public office. This goes for the father image as well. Perhaps a strong-willed, God-fearing head of the household projected in either real life or fiction would be damaging to the youth, with his domineering personality, causing children to be subservient and silenced in their true voice and expressions.

I say this is not so! Conversely to this assumption, leadership is ONLY passed along through 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 sees the dad allowing the good mother of the home to carry on his responsibilities, while he grossly neglects the family in many different ways.

Family Ministry
By now, you’re wondering if I’m ever going to describe what I think makes up a good father. 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. That is, play ball with his son, take him fishing, have a close father daughter relationship with his girls, and all in all, be a kind and sympathetic person. It’s his job to do all of these things, but first and foremost he must be the leader of his family. He takes helm of leading the household; providing guidance and direction through the storms the family faces as the years go by.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!