How to Be a Good Father to Your Son
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. In other words, to tell what a good father is, I believe I must first pursue the bad direction in which our fatherly images have traveled in the past few decades.
Parenting Style
You may believe it is too general to look at discouraging behavior in our kids and point the finger at the father of troubled children, as there may be deeper complexities that exist. Yes, this has been done many times in various parts of the world and during a great many different time periods.
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. Of course, the all-powerful television has hammered this image home in it’s portrayal of the idiot, pathetic, subservient father and husband.
Of course, we can’t blame everything on TV. 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, there seems to be no one to perpetuate this image as we have lost almost all of our examples as fatherly leadership is concerned. 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 his mother taking on an overwhelming amount of responsibility, as his father grossly neglects both his family and his responsibilities.
Family Ministry
By now, you’re wondering if I’m ever going to describe what I think makes up a good father. Surely by describing what a bad father lacks, gives many clues as to what a good father is. The good father is the antithesis of the weak and poor father. I would prefer seeing a strong-willed, man of character pass his child, and in doing so, observe the child somewhat flinching in fear of the repercussions of their actions, than see the reaction of most children to their father today. Call me old fashioned, but that fearful respect for the father is representative of being accountable for the child’s actions, recognizing that the good father represents values.
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. This includes teaching his kids to ride a bike, playing ball or taking them fishing; cultivating the bond between himself and his daughters, and being a strong, yet also a sympathetic figure. 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.
