As you begin developing your heart of fatherhood there will inevitably be crowds of folk telling you exactly how you should raise your children. Even before my sons were born a cacophony of noise came from all around telling me exactly how to be a parent and raise my children. If you really want the truth...none of us know what we're doing and we're completely winging it through life in general. While there is a lot of great advise out there I think the most important piece is that we're all learning and growing together with our kids...slow down and enjoy this time while it lasts. The second piece of advice I have is to ignore the vast majority of advice that will be thrown at you from the sidelines. No one truly knows your kids but you and your spouse.
Even if I don't want to admit it I had expectations of my father growing up. I developed these expectations mostly by observation and my own personal desires. Sometimes my father fell short, but more often than not he came through or went above and beyond. These expectations helped me shape what I think my son will expect of me and, combined with lessons taught to me by my father, what I should expect of myself.
One standard that goes across the board for fatherly expectations is for the father to be present. We know the statistics around fatherless children and none of them are good. Two stories come to mind when I think of criticisms in the way my father raised me and even the one negative story I have was also viewed, by me, as necessary.
My father was in the U.S. Army Special Forces like his father before him. Due to this my father was gone about 6-8 months out of any given year of my life while I was growing up. Despite this I had an endearing relationship with my father growing up. I viewed him, and still do, as a hero of mine often imagining him as a G.I. Joe figurine when I played with toys. I have the utmost reverence for anyone that has served in the military as me, my father, my grandfather, and multiple other family members have done. That does not mean that everything was simply paradise in our home.
I was a Cub Scout for a while and our troop was going on a camping trip somewhere. I've been on a few of these trips and while I don't remember how old I was I remember this one vividly. This was the first time my father was going to be able to camp with me at a cub scouts event and I was ecstatic. I rode up with the troop the day of while my mother and father worked and would show up later with the tent we needed. When they finally did arrive I was told that my father got called to duty and could not stay with me. I threw a pretty big fit from what I can recall...one so big my mother decided to stay with me since my father could not stay.
My father being unable to stay obviously impacted me greatly as I still recall that event to this day, but I would never blame my father as sacrifice is something you become well acquainted with in the military. All in all I was proud of my father for serving in the military, but that night I was distraught that our plans had fallen through. I know I might disappoint my son at some point, but I hope that I have a reason half as good as my father had and I hope my son eventually understands that reason as I do today.
The second story is from later in my life when I started getting into trouble in my high school days. My father had pushed me to join the football team and even became an assistant coach to be around me. Unfortunately, I held onto a lot of anger in my youth and took it out on my father so while he might feel that time was difficult everything he did was potentially a life-saving decision in reality. It almost felt like "too little, too late" thinking back on it, but my father started spending time with me doing extracurricular activities such as football or getting my open water diving license.
At some point I decided I did not want to go to practice and hid at a friends house avoiding football and scuba altogether. My mother and father found me at that friends house and forced me to go back to practice/training. In all honesty, they pulled me from a group of friends that I was doing drugs with and got me back into healthier activities for a young man like myself. In fact, on the way down to Florida to take my first open water dive, my father answered my phone for me and scared off a drug dealer that had been pestering me for weeks. I never heard from that drug dealer again.
I completed my open water diving license and I completed two full years of football with my father as an assistant coach. In hindsight I do wish my father was around a little bit sooner, possibly in middle school, but we cant change the past. I believe my father did what was needed of him at the time and did show up for me especially in my worst years, but I just wish I could have understood it better then and could have seen what he was trying to do for me.
Today I openly tell him those are some of the best years of my life and I appreciate him being there for me. I hope he knows just how much he did for me and I hope that I can be half the dad he was for my sons. All in all I think I expected my father to be there when I needed him the most and protect me. He did an outstanding job at both even if I didn't feel like he was doing great in the moment. I wish I didn't make it so hard on him to be the great man that he has always been.
When you become a new parent you will be bombarded with the opinion of others and what society expects of fathers. We all have different opinions and morals shaped by our experiences, beliefs, and education. Just because you don't believe in something for your child does not mean that another parent can't make that decision for themselves and their family. There are quite a few controversial parenting topics that people feel strongly about. Some of these, but definitely not all, might include:
Immediately some of you are reeling at a few things on this list and understandably so, but let's remember that people come from all walks of life throughout the world. For example, the drinking age differs from country to country which offers proof of differing perspectives throughout the world. Today, in America, it seems like every one of these subjects and quite a few more unmentioned ones are at the center of heated debates. In my humble opinion parents should be allowed to parent their children, for the most part (obvious abuse and neglect excluded), without interreference from outside sources such as the government.
I recall a story of my great aunt spanking her granddaughter in the parking lot for one thing or another. Some passerby decided to call Child Protective Services (CPS) on her resulting in a visit from agents. The agents themselves found no reason for concern and dismissed the case rather quickly. To me this felt like overstepping ones place in the world. Of course I would protect a child from being beaten, but I think we know by now that spanking is a topic often debated by researchers and parents alike. You may feel strongly one way or the other, but in the end there is not as much "scientific consensus" on the topic as you may think.
In a world where sometimes you need to be careful what information you allow to be public it is becoming more and more stressful to be a parent and act upon what you think might be your child's best interests. I would like to pose a question on this topic for everyone to think on as I close and jump further down in my article on the heart of fatherhood, and that question is, "If we all agree that children, who are under a specific age, are not adults and cannot make decisions for themselves then who is primarily in charge of them? The parents or the government?"
Social media folk will tell you everyday that you're a terrible parent and that you're doing it wrong. Everyone has their own opinion on how you should parent and what is right or wrong with YOUR style of parenting. I'm not a deeply religious person, but I am becoming more in-tune with my beliefs by the day. I heard a bible verse that I would like to share on this topic and while you may not be religious I implore you to dwell on the words and their meaning. Thousands of years and we're still learning some of the same lessons in life.
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:3-5)
It's quite easy to judge others for their words and actions, but not so easy to resolve the issues within your own life. I suggest starting with your own issues before diving into other peoples business. As I said, I am not a deeply religious man, but the older I get the more philosophy and spirituality I find myself becoming interested in learning about. It may have to do with raising a son or the knowledge that one day I will no longer exist on this earth, but it is my journey and I wanted to share this thought with you before continuing any further.
If you are present in your child's life and, in general, trying to be a good parent then you are already doing better than 25% of fathers (at least in the U.S. where 1 in 4 children grow up without a father). Consider now that 50% of kids will grow up in a divorced household and how many of those situations end in the father no longer being present or a good role model. Of course, with the right situation even a divorced couple can be good parents to their children, but it does make it more difficult for sure. This is why I propose that any father, divorced or not, that is present and trying to be a good parent is doing better than probably close to 50% of all other fathers. You're halfway to being the best father ever, so worry less about what other people think of your parenting style and more about embracing the unique heart of fatherhood that you are bringing to the table for your family.
In the end, we are all raising the next generation of children. We will fail to understand them just as our parents failed to understand us fully. We will have successes and failures throughout our lives and that will translate into our parenting. The only thing I can say to you is to be good to your family, be good to your children, be present, and always try to do better. Embrace the heart of fatherhood that you embody and become the best parent that you can possibly become. Strive to be someone your children to look up to and have a desire to be better with each passing day.
I feel I will fall short of matching my fathers abilities, but I will use the lessons he taught me and the mistakes I feel he made to ensure that I am raising the next generation of my family to be upstanding good people who will do the same for their families one day if they choose to have one. In closing, I love you dad and I love you, my sons.
