So what are the ingredients of good fathering? We decided to find out by interviewing men identified by others as especially good examples of the same.
Over the past three decades, we have asked diverse American clergy to point us to the most exemplary families in their congregations so that we could interview them and learn the secrets behind their success. Our American Families of Faith project now includes about 300 racially diverse families from all regions of the United States.
These families include men who — according to their clergy, wives and kids — repeatedly place God, their wives and their children ahead of themselves. Today, we share seven brief insights from some of these most impressive fathers.
Living what you say you believe
A nondenominational Christian father from Pennsylvania named Jerry (a pseudonym like the other names below) emphasized the importance of “walking the talk.”
“Kids see if faith is a Sunday thing — or if it’s a 24–7 thing,” he said. As fathers who have occasionally been called hypocrites by our own children, we are aware that kids come equipped with manure detectors that have parent-sensitive settings.
Jerry’s wife, Jessica, said of him, “I’ve seen him changing over the years. He loves the Lord and wants to do what pleases Him. … (Jerry) has an important role in being like Jesus to the kids. … If a kid grows up having a father who is loving and kind and supportive and strong, I think it is easier for them to understand God and who He is.”
Seth, a Jewish father from Delaware, called out his own parents for hypocrisy and putting on “appearances,” but he welled up with emotion when discussing the profound faith of his grandfather, whose prayers were so powerful they shook you.
“Some people go to synagogue and act holy and then go home and revert to their own lives,” Seth remembered. “But … my grandfather never put on a front for anyone, he didn’t act spiritual in synagogue, he was spiritual.”
He went on to explain, “We say prayers before dinner every night and that was actually a decision we made when my grandfather died. (Grandfather) wouldn’t sit down to a meal without saying a blessing, ‘Thanks for this bread.’”
“When he died, we decided, Let’s do that before each meal, that way we’ll remember him for eternity, and it stuck.”
Men of deep faith can literally bless generations. Our Father’s Day wish is for more dads and grandfathers like these men.
Appreciating the good that can coming from a challenge
Ty, a Black Baptist father from Louisiana nailed it with this summary: ”Kids bless you and they stress you.”
No explanation is needed for anyone who has been a parent for more than two days.
Refusing to pass along toxic patterns
A member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints named Matt told us after our extensive interview with him that his own father had been distant and cold— even brutal.
At 10 years of age, Matt began making a list of his father’s harsh actions. By the time Matt left home at 18, the list was more than 100 items long. Years later, then a father of six, Matt had kept the 30-year-old list in his sock drawer and read a couple of lines from it each morning while promising himself that his children would never experience what he did — and that compassion will replace cruelty in all he does.
“Every morning I look at that list and promise myself that that will never be me.”
“Having a child, this is what life is really all about,” he said. “If I’m president of the United States, if I’m a CEO of a major corporation … that will end. (But) I will always be the father of my children.”
Matt is what social scientists call a transitional figure. Another apt term for this kind of generational turn-around is “an inspired miracle.”
Even good causes can undermine the home
Jackson, a young Christian father of two from Washington, reflected with pain and sorrow on the life of his father, who was a pastor. “It seemed like church always came before family for my dad and eventually it cost him his family.”
We are reminded of leading family therapist Bill Doherty’s warning to avoid “time affairs.” Whether the time affair is with NFL football, the golf course, chasing dollars, or even one’s faith community, time affairs are destructive to family relationships.
Jackson himself is a father of faith but is doing his best to ensure that his church and work involvement support his efforts as a husband and father, instead of undermining them.
Living for something higher than yourself
Alejandro, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ originally from Mexico, went through a religious conversion and personal transformation at 30 years old. Remembering how he was prior to becoming a member of his new church, he recalls his parents and siblings often commenting on the changes they would see in his life.
“When I told them ten years ago that I was going to get married according to the teachings of my (new) church, they just laughed because I didn’t have a job or a girlfriend. Two years later, when I invited them all to my wedding they were all surprised.”
“Three months after that,” he continued, “when I was appointed director of an office in the Mexican government, they were surprised again. Oh yes, there’s been a great change in my life.”
Alejandro lost his old, self-centered life but found a new one that came to include his wife, Consuela, and, in time, two daughters. “God requires much more of people than their own self-interest,” he said. “And recognizing this has brought me much more happiness and joy in my life than any other type of success.”
Enduring love and commitment
Speaking of women, wives and daughters, the novelist Henry James wrote, “The ladies will save us. … (Find) a good one and marry her, and your life will become much more interesting.”
Lance, a father of eight, found this to be true — noting that there would be no fathers without the life-giving and life-sustaining sacrifices of mothers. During our interview with him and his sweetheart of more than 40 years, he shared these poetic words he had written to her — the mother of their children.
“I only know that if our marriage cannot exist eternally, I don’t care whether I do or not. I can imagine no Heaven without it; (and) with it, even Hell would be tolerable.”
On Father’s Day, let us remember that life literally comes through a unity between a mother and a father. And equally so, may we remember that life is best sustained and nurtured by shared, enduring parental devotion.
Patience with the hardest questions
Our last insight on faithful fathering hails from Brad, whose wife gave birth to triplet daughters who were severely premature. One of the triplets died shortly after birth.
The other two survived but had significant developmental delays in addition to visual and hearing problems. Our home-based interview was extended due to frequent and chaotic interruptions from a series of mild “emergencies” involving the girls, then age two.
Brad cared for his girls with a patience and easiness of manner that seemed to evenly counter the visible chaos of an exceptionally challenging parenting situation. At the conclusion of the interview, the family was asked, “I know you are a man of faith, but don’t you ever shake your clenched fists at the heavens and say, ‘Why, God? Why?!’”
Brad looked at a point off in the distance that only he could see and said, “I did once.”
“Well, do you feel like you got a response?”
“Eventually.”
“Please, tell me what it was …”
Again, Brad looked at the distant point visible only to him. And then he softly replied, “God told me that I will live into the answer.”
We have pondered Brad’s inspired response for more than 25 years.
Our three decades of looking for answers regarding how to be a good father have led us to many who are discovering and living out their own answers. In our ongoing search, we have used two diverse tools — religious traditions and social science.
Religion teaches us to believe, while science teaches us to be skeptical. Perhaps psychologist Charlotte Buhler was right when she said, “All we can do is study the lives of people who seem to have found their answers to the questions of what ultimately human life is about.”
But we believe there is more, something divine. We close with a reflection from Robert Ingersoll, “It is difficult for a child to find a father in God, unless the child first finds something of God in his father.”
May we each find a father in God, and may our children find something of God in us.
Loren Marks and Dave Dollahite are professors in the School of Family Life at BYU. Marks is also a fellow at the Wheatley Institute.