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Father's Day: celebration or mourning?

I imagine many of you have had memorable New Year’s Eves.  I have had two that stand out in my mind.  You might remember December 31, 1999.  The entire world was in the grip of concern over Y2K.  No one really knew what was going to happen when computers around the world had to make the transition from the two digit 99 settings to the new 00 ones.  As midnight December 31 approached, my wife and I were at a New Year’s Eve gathering at the home of one of our friends.  At about 11:28 pm I quietly left the party and slipped outside to find the power switch to the house’s electrical panel.  It was a spur of the moment idea.  At the stroke of midnight, I flipped the switch to the “off” position throwing the party into complete darkness.  My friends all reported a brief moment of panic.  Then they noticed that the lights in adjoining houses were still on.  I turned the power back on and returned to the party to bask in the glory of my “gotcha” accomplishment.  But that was not my most memorable New Year’s Eve.

 

My most memorable New Year’s Eve took place on December 31, 1979.  It was a snowy day in Denver.  I took my wife out to lunch and then to see The Electric Horseman, starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda.  I drove home through the ice and snow with “Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys” stuck in my mind.  At 5:30 pm, my wife’s water broke and she went into labor.  Our New Year’s Eve was spent at Rose Hospital in Denver with me trying to remember how to coach Ali through all those breathing things I was taught at our Lamaze class.  Early in the morning, on January 1, 1980, our daughter Stephanie was born.  I became a Dad.

 

I remember later that morning walking out of the hospital to head home and take a quick shower before heading back to spend the day with Ali and our first child.  As I was walking across the snow covered street to our car I had the strangest thought float into my consciousness: “life insurance.”  I’m not sure I had ever thought about life insurance in my entire adult life until that moment.  But suddenly, everything had changed.  I was a dad, and dads think about things like life insurance.  I also remember praying and asking God to make me a great dad.  I had no idea what that meant, or what that would take, but I wanted to be one.  I, like many of you, didn’t have a great dad.  I wanted my kids to be spared the pain of what that meant and to have what I didn’t.  January 1, 2010, I will have been a dad for thirty years.  My son, Baker, was born April 9, 1986, so I have a combined fathering experience of over fifty years.  I’m not sure I have achieved greatness in the enterprise, but I have really tried.  I’ve also learned a great deal about what it takes to be a great dad, or at least a good one, and I also know that America could use a few good dads in the same way the Marines could use a few good men.

 

This Sunday is Father’s Day.  You might not know how big a problem the lack of good fathering is in our country.  Several years ago, David Blankenhorn, in his book Fatherless America, pointed out that 40% of the children growing up in America today will go to bed tonight without a father in the house.  This means that about 16 million children in our country are growing up fatherless.  One out of every three birth certificates issued in America this year will contain a blank where the space for naming the father appears.  Blankenhorn identifies this situation as the greatest social problem America faces.  These statistics do not even touch on the problem of absent or uninvolved fathers, or of the most hideous problem of all surrounding the fathering issue: fathers who are emotionally, physically, and even sexually abusive to their children.  America needs some great dads.  America needs a lot of great dads.  Let me suggest what it takes to be the kind of dad that can make Father’s Day a time of celebration instead of a day of national mourning.  I’ll set this in the context of three gifts children need from their dads in order to grow up and thrive physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

 

Kids need time with their dads.  Dads need to prioritize giving this gift to their kids.  This can be a great challenge.  For many of us, the very years that our children need us the most are also the years that we are trying to launch careers that will enable us to provide the income needed to provide the things we all want to give our families.  I remember coming home many afternoons from work and wanting to do nothing but sit in a chair and decompress.  But I knew I needed to give my kids the gift of time.  Many men are confused about this challenge.  They think the most important part of their day is what happens at the office.  I’d like to suggest that the most important part of our day begins when we get home from work. 

 

Research indicates that the average dad in America doesn’t do a great job at this.  I remember reading an article in “Scientific American” magazine where a study indicated that the average amount of focused time spent by fathers with their pre-school children was thirty-seven seconds a day.  If you ask me which is more important; quantity of time spent with our kids, or quality of time spent with our kids, I will tell you what fifty years have taught me: both!  Great dads make sure they are giving their children the gift of time, because what your kids need more than anything else is you!

 

The classic New Testament text on fathering is found in Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus.  In the sixth chapter of that document we find the instruction to fathers  to “raise up your children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”  In the Greek text, the word that is translated as “raise up” is a word that could more properly be translated as “nurture.”  It was actually an agricultural term that referred to the careful care and attention given to a plant to make sure it grew to be healthy and productive.  We often think that mom’s are to be the nurturing influence in our children’s lives.  But this instruction is addressed to fathers.  Hugs, kisses, words of affirmation, and all those actions and attitudes that come under the heading of “nurturing” might come more natural to mom’s, but kids need these things from their dads, too!  Even the words “discipline” and “instruction” that appear in this text are more about encouraging and coaching than about spanking and lecturing.  I think it is interesting that the first part of the verse exhorts fathers not to “provoke your children to wrath.”  For many of us, the way our dads treated us might have been more effective in making us angry than in encouraging us to be all we can be.

 

The third gift great dads give their children is the gift of truth.  My fifty years as a dad, and as an observer of other dads, has led me to the conviction that the two most powerful realities I can help facilitate in my children’s lives are a healthy, realistic, and positive sense of self-esteem - and a positive, healthy, and truthful understanding and experience of God.  I want my kids to know and experience God’s love and plans for their lives.  Since children learn what they live, this means that I need to be diligent in not only talking about spiritual truth, but also to the best of my ability, and the work of God’s grace, I somehow model it.  I can honestly tell you that I have no idea how well I have done in pulling this off.

 

Randy Pausch, in his book The Last Lecture, pointed out that time is all we have, and one day we might discover that we have less than we think.  I don’t know how many years I have left on the planet.  I’ve already outlived my own father by one.  But I do know that one day I will be gone, and hopefully, barring any tragedy, my children will still be alive and have children of their own.  I can only hope that when Father’s Day rolls around each year, it will be a time of celebration for them, and not a time of pain and mourning.  I hope they are able to tell their children that Grandpa was a great dad, or at least a good one.  For those of you who are fathers, or will one day be fathers, I hope and pray the same for you.