How to Be a Good Father to Your Son

For me to convey the meaning of a good father, I feel it’s necessary to first bring up some alarmingly ugly facts that should not only get your attention, but also give you a sense of what we’re 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.

Parent’s Purpose
People can say that alarmists have always stood up and said that things were not right with our young people and pointed to the father images and the homes in general as the culprits. Yes, this no doubt, has been done throughout time and is not necessarily always spot on, but the parental duty of a father leaves a powerful shadow on their child.

If you were to randomly survey people off the street to ask them to define a good father, you may be very surprised by what you hear, unless you focused your efforts on a group of people who see the need for a strong family leader. You might hear that the father typically gets the sympathy of the rest of the family members and especially the attention of his spouse. He may go about this in a childish manner, begging for attention. TV sitcoms and movies have set this as standard expectations for the father figure in recent years.

I digress, as television can only be held responsible to an extent. 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. This goes for the father image as well. Perhaps a strong-willed, God-fearing head of the household projected in either real life or fiction would be damaging to the youth, with his domineering personality, causing children to be subservient and silenced in their true voice and expressions.

I say this is not so! Leadership can only be passed along through example. To my dismay, nearly all the examples of paternal leadership is concerned, have disappeared, so we are left without much to perpetuate this image. The young man grows up with a weak father and does not have anyone with whom to identify, so he does not 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.

Christian Youth Home
By now, you’re wondering if I’m ever going to describe what I think makes up a good father. By describing a bad father, I am surely telling you what a good father should be. Certainly, the good father is the opposite of the weak and cowardly, irresponsible 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. Maybe I’m a bit old fashioned, but I really feel children of all ages should have a type of fearful respect for their fathers: not because he is going to harm them physically, but because they have been brought up to the point that they dread him giving them even a glance of disdain.

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. Things such as playing catch with his son, taking him fishing, having that special bond with his daughter, and being strong yet sympathetic figure. He can be all of these things and at the same time, be a true example and 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.