The Importance of Fathers by Tina Erwin

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    We all know that dads are important, and since there are so many single mom’s out there trying to fulfill both roles perhaps it is a good idea to identify what good dads bring to the family.

         A really great dad is a teacher for all his children, offering them the benefit of his wisdom when it comes to people, politics, career guidance, sportsmanship, building things, tools, and life in general.

         The dad who just sits in front of the TV and never spends time reading or holding his little kids misses out on an incredible opportunity to teach his children something. When you teach them, it means you are spending time with them. One of my sons noted that some of his happiest times were when he was in the garage working on something with his Dad - the give and take, the patience of learning how tools work. There were the times when they built gigantic lego projects together and the guidance received at those times, enabled our son had to build Lego models on his on as a practice for following written directions.

         Dads teach balance in a marriage:  doing chores, washing dishes, sharing in the cleaning, yard work and errand running.

         Dads teach consideration when shopping for birthdays, mother’s day and holidays for moms and siblings.
         Dads also teach the importance of evaluating good rules to follow in life. The dad who insists that his son or daughter wear their helmet while bike riding and doesn't wear one himself, teaches the terrible parable: do as I say, not as I do. A seething resentment will eventually result in the child and the seeds of a difficult relationship will follow.
        However, the dad that shops for parent and child helmets shows by his example the importance of safety, of understanding why these helmets are important. This metaphor is critical in a child's life. Kids learn by example as well as by doing.

         Dads teach politics when they discuss their jobs with their sons and daughters so that they can understand how the real world functions from a man’s perspective.

         Children learn what marriage is like ONLY from watching their parents. Kids will do what their parents do unless they are very, very savvy and can differentiate from what was great about their parents and what required improvement.

         Boys learn how to treat women with respect, from watching their dad interact with their mom. If the dad is kind and considerate, then sons learn this. Girls learn how women are to be treated from their dad’s attitude toward their mom. The abusive father creates abusive kids and abusive adults. The disrespectful father creates disrespectful kids. The physically and verbally violent dad creates horrific trauma for kids literally for generations to come.

         It is always better to have a single mom family than have a violent family with an abusive dad. The kids never really forgive the mom for continuing to allow the abuse much less the dad for abusing all of them. Why didn’t she just leave him, they ask themselves for the rest of their lives, until they end up in the same type of marriage. It takes quite a bit of courage to leave that life.

         So dads are incredibly valuable and families need dads for love and for balance. Families don’t need dads who are never there or who abuse.

         Like everything else in human relationships, the father connection is very complicated and incredibly important. Let us hope that more men decide to be really great dads because they are vitally important in everyone’s life. 

Photo courtesy of James M. Erwin. All rights reserved.