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. To that end it is that I will unveil the negative trends and portrayals of fathers we’ve seen through the years.

Parent’s Purpose
One could argue that the alarmists have focused blame on what’s wrong with our youth and pointed to the parental figures in the home as the culprits, in many cases. While this may have been done many times for different reasons, it is extremely appropriate, at this time, to examine the impact of fathering in our youth’s culture.

Ask anyone on the street today what a good father is, and unless you’re only polling a group of people who have a similar world view on the need for strong parent figures, you may be shocked by some of the responses. 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 by playing vicitim. This I imagine has been drilled into our population by the one-eyed monster, we call television, that graces most all our homes.

I digress, as television can only be held responsible to an extent. Over the years, our culture has become so liberal that strength and leadership is shunned by many and avoided by most. Seldom do we see elected to public office, true leaders of character, ability and strength. This goes for the father image as well. If we see a strong-charactered, God-fearing head of a household reflected in real life or in fiction, we will immediately come to the conclusion: he is going to scar his children by his domineering personality and make the some type of servile individuals for the rest of their lives.

I say this is not so! The only way one learns true leadership and strength early in life is by 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. No young man with a weak father figure can identify with the strong paternal image, and so he doen’t truly know what a real man is. He may see dad refusing many responsibilities and neglect his family in many other ways, only for the good mother to be left to do it all.

Family Ministry
So you’re probably wondering when I’m going to get around to tell you what I thing a good father is. By describing a bad father, I am surely telling you what a good father should be. The good father is the antithesis of the weak and poor father. I would much rather see a strong-character, righteous man walk by his children, and in doing so, observe them somewhat flinching as they became fearful that he might just swat them, then see the reaction of most children to their father today. Call me old fashioned, but that fearful respect for the father is representative of being accountable for the child’s actions, recognizing that the good father represents values.

Protecting your child in a seductive world
A good father does the things we traditionally picture a father doing with their child. That is, play ball with his son, take him fishing, have a close father daughter relationship with his girls, and all in all, be a kind and sympathetic person. He should do all these things, yes, but he must first and foremost be the family leader. He has to take the helm of leadership and guide the household through the storms it is going to face as the years go by.