A father’s love

Would a family-friendly father be one who, on Father’s Day, hides under the blankets and waits for his children to rouse him for a breakfast of soggy toast, cold eggs and coffee or does he get up and make them a special breakfast?

Would a family-friendly father be one who although he is separated from his wife and children allows the gift and blessing of fatherhood to take the honours and puts aside his bitterness for the moment and joins them for a picnic?

Is a family-friendly father for them, or with them?

The answer is not an either/or proposition, but clearly could be both.

Research consistently shows that in comparison to children who have uninvolved fathers, children with involved, loving fathers are significantly more likely to do well in school, have healthy self-esteem, exhibit empathy and pro-social behaviour, and avoid high-risk behaviours such as drug use, truancy, and criminal activity.

In our society there are great numbers of single parents, nearly all mothers, but those fathers are somewhere around. Maybe they have absconded, maybe they have not been searched for, maybe they are deliberately keeping away. As they grow up many children want to meet their fathers, but that may need to be handled delicately if he has moved on and has formed another family.

Paying maintenance and having occasional visiting rights is a very minimal contribution for both child and father. Just as girls can’t help but grow up when they become a mother, being a dad can be good not just for the baby but for the youth too. Fatherhood can make a man out of a boy.

Fathering a child is ideally an act of love that should continue to nurture and support the child in the special way of a father. Play with them, eat and sleep with them. Help them with homework, attend school meetings, take an interest in their career choice and later on their career. Attend their university graduation, plan their wedding. Go drinking, to the theatre or to a sports match as they grow up. Build a relationship of trust and openness where ultimately both can express differences and yet not sever the bond that must last through life.

And above all, the greatest gift a father can give his children is to love their mother.

Jacob wrestled with the angel to prove himself a man and a man of God. Surely it is a father’s task to wrestle with himself and physically and spiritually with his children, to bring them up to manhood and womanhood, to maturity, to a sense of self, of who they are and to feel proud and content with who they are.

The model for fatherhood is God, the Father of Jesus and the one to whom we pray “Our Father in heaven”. He stood by his people for many generations, provided for them, sustained them, forgave them again and again and never ceased to love them.

At this time it is good to remember fathers who have died and to honour those men who play a father’s role with stepchildren or adopted or foster children too. They make big sacrifices that might well not be appreciated.

Each dad must make his own choices but he does well to remember that there is much more to being a successful dad than being a good provider.

To paraphrase St Paul:

If I could tell my children exactly what their future holds and if I believe that someday each will be successful but do not give them love, I am nothing.

If I give them everything they want, if I sacrifice all I have, even my life, for them but do not love them, they gain nothing.

Fatherly love protects the toddler, firmly guides the adolescent, celebrates with the young adult who has long since out-classed him in the modern day world, and continues to hope for those who falter year after year.

A father’s love never gives up.