THE GOOD FATHER: A NEED OF BOTH CHILDREN AND WIVES.
As a man, allowing the moral and educational development of your children to only your wife can cause her to lose admiration for you. This can possibly lead to her, having an affair with another man who is making up for your short-comings.
A solid family unit, where the Father plays the role of a leader, is the desire of many women. They want a man that they can respect and in whom their children can look up to for values, provisions and inspirations.
In further readings, I will be examining reasons why some men are not good fathers; and the impact this could have on their wives and children. We will look at ways in which men can change and be good fathers, fulfilling that emotional need of their wives and children. ENJOY!!!
WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?
Most Men, don’t spend time with their children. They lack “quality family time”. A man who wakes-up early, way beyond the rising time of his children, dresses up and goes to work, without any good morning kisses: rushing to be in the office to get the business day running for him. He comes back home late in the night, at a time when all the children are far asleep. This kind of lifestyle causes serious damage to the family unity. How? The children get to see less of their father, therefore polarizing themselves to their mother. The burden of training the children will be heavy on the wives. Over-time, they will get frustrated and begin to nag all the time. This is actually the first step into several conflicts that will come into the marriage, possibly leading to a divorce.
THE STORY OF ANN AND TERRY
Ann and Terry met in their early thirties. Neither of them has been married before, and both felt ready to settle down. Their relationship was very good, with one exception: Terry had no use for Ann’s parents. Ann felt bad about this, but she knew other couples who had problems that seemed worse to her. She and Terry got along to well in every other area that she decided to try to live with the problem.
“Maybe, in time, it will work itself out,” she told herself. Terry’s eagerness to get away from Ann’s Family considerably dampened the wedding. She hardly had time to greet her relatives before her new husband whisked her away to the honeymoon trip.
During their first year of marriage Ann tried to interest Terry in her family get-togethers, but to no avail. She soon learned that he would have little to do with his own parents, much less spend time with hers.
The problem didn’t “work itself out”, in fact, as their two children arrived it got worse. When they were only babies, Ann wrote it off as a typical male attitude. “He will be more interested when they get older”, she thought.
But Terry didn’t become more interested. He had little time for them, and when they clamored for his attention, he became irritable. Ann finally quit hoping and admitted to herself that she had married a man who just wasn’t family oriented. She worried about what would happen to the children: especially little Tommy, who really needed his Dad.
Ann hated to admit it, but Terry’s bachelor cousin, Drew, was a better father to her children than Terry. Drew visited regularly on holidays and over some weekends. He was so good with the kids they called him Uncle Drew. Drew eventually became their favorite baby-sitter, especially when Terry and Ann went away overnight. Drew’s popularity with Ann’s children left her ambivalent. While she could see Drew becoming their “father” in a sense, and that worried her, she also found comfort in knowing her children received the male supervision and companionship they needed so badly.
One day, when Ann shopped during the noon hour, she saw Drew. After a few moments of conversation, Drew said, “Look, why don’t we get some lunch?”
“I will love it!”
After they had placed their orders with the waiter, Drew asked, “Well, how are my kids?”
His tender concern brought tears to Ann’s eyes. “I have never told you how I worry about them,” she began. In a few minutes she had poured out all her fears and worries about Terry’s lack of commitment to the family. She concluded by confessing, “Sometimes, Drew, I feel as if you act more like a parent to my children than Terry does.”
Drew turned a bit red, but still had to smile. “You know I love those little guys as if they were my own.” He reached across the table and held Ann’s hand. “Look, I want to help. I will start making a point to drop by more often to see them. In fact, how about if I take them to the county fair on Saturday?”
“That would be wonderful! Ann replied. I can even come along myself.”
Ann did go to the fait with Drew and the kids that Saturday. It began a steady pattern in which Drew earnestly sought to help compensate for his cousin’s lack of commitment to his family. Terry did not seem to mind. He trusted Drew as a good friend as well as a member of the family.
Over the two years that followed that luncheon, Ann and Drew began to see more and more of each other. They met often for lunch in addition to sharing outings with the children.
Ann began to admit to herself that she needed Drew in her life. He supported her in what seemed to be her most important responsibility: the care and development of her children. Slowly, over the months, their friendship became an affair. She came to love him with greater intensity and passion than she had ever loved any man.
The Conflict that developed in Ann was unbearable. On the one hand, she did not want their children to go through the pain of divorce and be separated from their true father; on the other hand, she could not bear raising her children without the support of a man she loved.
Ann struggled with her emotions until Terry discovered the affair. He felt hurt and angry that his own cousin would betray him. To avoid the wrath of Terry and the rest of the family, Drew moved to another state. Now Ann felt doubly devastated. Her lover was gone, and so was the man who had acted as a father to her children. Where would she go from here?
REASONS WHY MOST MEN DON’T HAVE QUALITY TIME WITH THEIR FAMILY
1. WORK: So many men prioritize their work over their family. The burden of providing for their family has led so many men to jeopardize the unity of their family. A man must find a time balance between his work, wife and children, without making any of the parties to suffer.
2. CHILDHOOD TRAUMA: A man, who was brought-up in an un-loving family, will never know how to spend quality time with his family. A man cannot give what he doesn’t have!! He doesn’t have love so he cannot give it.
Divorce, as common as it is in our contemporary world, is one of the major cause of trauma to children. These children grow-up, never experiencing what family get-together feels like. From the story of Ann and Terry, you could see that Terry doesn’t even care about family time with even his own parents. This is a clear proof that Terry never experienced true family unity when he was growing up.
NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF NOT BEING A GOOD FATHER
1. TO THE WIFE: Women have this desire of looking for a good leader in a man. When this desire is not fulfilled, it makes them loose respect for their husbands and may even end-up having an affair with another man, just as in the case of Ann.
They become stressed: the burden of working full time, handling the domestic work at home and taking care of the kids without any help from their husbands, drain them physically and emotionally.
2. TO THE CHILDREN: The lack of attention they don’t get from their father causes them to resent him. It kills the moral value of family unity or co-operation in them.
Fathers have profound influence on their children. Fathers are the pride of the children. The moral values of a man, moulds the mind of his children directly or indirectly.
A man who beats his wife will likely produce a son who will beat his wife in the future. This is the reason why so many women are looking for a man with an excellent moral. They want their children to look up to their father and be like him and even far better.
When a child is above 12yrs, he desires to spend more time with his friends rather than his family. If you as a father don’t change your habit of not spending “quality family time” with your wife and children, the resentment of your teenage child will be doubled. The only thing you get from them at that age is heated quarrels.
SOME ACTIVITIES YOU CAN DO TO HAVE QUALITY TIME WITH YOUR FAMILY
1. Eat on the dinning together with your family and children.
2. Going out for walks and bike rides together.
3. Attending religious services together.
4. Conducting Family meetings.
5. Playing board games together.
6. Attending sports events together.
7. Reading to the children before bedtime.
8. Helping the children with financial planning
9. Family projects (be certain these are fun for the children and that they do not work on them alone).
You can add some interesting activities that are not mentioned in the list above.
Just as I have over-emphasized earlier: The need of you as a father to be a leader to your children: a leader of excellent morals and principles for them to emulated, cannot be down-played.
“Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it”.
Good morals can be induces into a child by 2 ways:
1. Living an exemplary lifestyle as a father.
2. Training.
HOW TO INDUCE GOOD MORALS INTO YOUR CHILD THROUGH TRAINING.
1. Set rules and regulations, principles to follow: Any home without do’s and don’ts for the children is simply an irresponsible family.
2. Communicate these principles: As a Father, you must communicate these principles by living according to them and explaining them to your children.
3. Administer punishment properly:
Proverbs 23:13-14 “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol (the land of death)”
If your children behave badly, punishment must be administered in love and with wisdom, without injuring them physically. Children whose parents never spank them often run wild. I recommend that parents phase out spanking by the time a child reaches age 7 or 8.
Non-corporal punishment can be applied for both children below 8yrs and above. Most commonly parents take away privileges from them: This must be applied appropriately and wisely.
Men must see child training as a joint effort with their wives. They must agree with their wives on the right disciplinary actions to apply on certain offences done by their kids.
In administering punishment to your children, you must do it without anger. Anger can cause you to do extreme harsh things to the child, causing you to regret it later (particularly when the child run away from home or resent you passionately).
When these training methodologies are being implemented meticulously, your children begin to develop good morals in them, living a life that is pleasing and productive.
CONCLUSION
As an Action Christian and a believer in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, being a good father to your children is a necessity. “A man and a woman can meet sexually to produce children, but that doesn’t make them parents or fit for parenting”. Daniel Bala Usman.
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