Fathers

When I was a boy in my father's house, still tender, and an only child of my mother, he taught me and said, "Lay hold of my words with all your heart; keep my commands and you will live. –Pro. 4:2-4

If you read the Scripture at top, you probably agreed in your heart that it is a very good model of how things are supposed to be. Yet, how many of us had dads who did this, who took us aside and spoke tender words of comfort and wisdom into our souls? Precious few, I suspect. I never experienced that. But at least he was there in my life, a rugged block of a man who knew hard labor as his business and faithfulness as his duty. We celebrated father’s day last Sunday, which always makes the card companies happy and means that I might get to make a request for dinner. But as a nation, we evidently are doing a pitiful job of appreciating the role that fathers play.

Kathleen Parker reports that “a 1999 study of how fathers were presented in 102 primetime TV shows, the National Fatherhood Initiative found only four in which a father was portrayed as present and involved in his children’s lives.” You know the typical drama. Dad is a bumbling fool at best or absent and hopeless at worst. And “at the same time little boys and girls are seeing bad, dumb daddies on TV, more than a third don’t live with their own father, owing either to divorce or single motherhood.” And yet we know “study after study shows an association between fatherlessness and a wide range of social pathologies, including drug abuse, promiscuity and delinquency.”

Fathers do have a strong influence upon the lives of children even if they are not chiseled from the Book of Proverbs. Susan Estrich wrote a tearful testimonial last week about how her father was far from perfect. “He smoked and drank and married the wrong woman. He went months without seeing me. He didn’t buy me presents or pay my tuition. …But I loved him so.” Thirty years later she still misses him.

But when the dad-role is played well, it can have a huge impact upon families. As a man, I often thought my influence was rather minimal when walking in the door at the end of a day to see the whirl of family activity going on about me. I did not cook the meal on the table, clean the house, wash any of the clothes, or help anybody with the homework of the day. I possessed only a fraction of my wife’s knowledge of the world in which my children moved and had their being. But to think I did not matter is a totally false and deprecating assumption. Theodore Roosevelt called the Presidency of the United States a “bully pulpit” for he rightly knew that the words he spoke from it would echo near and far. The high and holy position of “father” is also a “bully pulpit” as well that begs to be used for good.

Roosevelt’s father spoke these words into his young son’s life as he was going off to college. “Take care of your morals first, your health next, and finally your studies.” Theodore Roosevelt idolized his father and bound those words tightly to his heart. So much so, that his modern day biographer offered bemused wonder at Theodore’s commitment to purity before marriage. How many young men go off to college today so challenged? Not long after, Roosevelt’s father died and in his grief in pondering his future he wrote, “Oh Father, my Father, no words can tell how I shall miss your counsel and advice.”

May you dads realize that you are standing on holy ground. Your daily footsteps leave imprints that will follow you in the lives of your children for generations to come. You are more than just a paycheck. Much, much more.