Make room for daddy
The importance of fathers should not be discounted
By Christina Quick
A mother recently wrote to a newspaper advice columnist,
asking who should walk her daughter down the aisle on her wedding day: the
bride’s biological father or stepfather.
“It’s challenging these days, when families are so complex,”
the columnist responded, suggesting the bride could skip the worrisome part of
the ceremony or have her mother walk her down the aisle instead.
In a culture riddled with broken homes and strained
parent-child relationships, such dilemmas are common. Whether they’re
contemplating a big day or just another day, many people aren’t sure what to do
with dads.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, 34 percent of the nation’s children live apart from their biological
fathers. Of those, 40 percent haven’t seen their dads at all in the past year,
and half have never been to their father’s residence.
Men who are engaged in their children’s lives often find
themselves at odds with the negative perceptions born of a fatherless generation.
From the beer-guzzling caricatures on greeting cards to clueless sitcom
bumblers who contribute little to the family beyond a paycheck and a few
laughs, fatherhood seems to beget more ridicule than respect.
Meg Meeker, a Christian pediatrician and family counselor,
says kids are the ones who suffer most when a father’s influence is diminished.
Strong paternal bonds are among the most crucial components to a child’s
long-term success, she says.
“A father really is a child’s first male love,” says Meeker,
author of Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters and Boys Should Be Boys: 7 Secrets
to Raising Healthy Sons. “Any significant accomplishment in a kid’s life is
really at risk unless he or she has a good relationship with Dad.”
Research supports Meeker’s claims. Multiple studies show a
healthy relationship with a father lowers a child’s risk of academic problems;
physical, sexual and emotional abuse; neglect; obesity; low self-esteem;
depression; promiscuity; drug, alcohol and tobacco use; criminal activity; and
incarceration.
“If a child has a positive experience with a dad during
those early years, he learns a lot about trust and love,” Meeker says. “He
figures out who he is by watching his father’s responses to him. This
interaction can shape the entire course of his life.”
Boys are especially dependent on a father’s guidance to help
them make the transition from adolescence to adulthood, Meeker says.
“Boys have a need to be able to size up their masculinity,”
she says. “If they don’t have that dad influence, they never feel they’re good
enough or strong enough.”
Experts agree that girls need their fathers, too, though for
seemingly different reasons. Studies show females who grow up without a father
in the home are seven times more likely to become pregnant during their teen
years.
“A daughter is born with a desire to want to please her dad
and get positive attention from him,” Meeker says. “The number one way to
increase a girl’s self-esteem is for her dad to give her attention. Many girls
who don’t get that from their dads seek it out in relationships with boys.”
Mary DeMuth says that’s exactly what happened in her life.
Her parents divorced when she was an infant, and her biological father died
when she was 10. Her mother remarried twice, which only added to DeMuth’s sense
of instability.
“It left a pretty big hole in my heart and made me want to
find a father,” DeMuth says. “When I became a teenager I had this insatiable
need to be recognized by boys. I constantly needed attention that way. I didn’t
realize it at the time, but I was looking for a dad.”
DeMuth’s desperate search ended when she became a Christian
at age 15. She found comfort in knowing God as her eternal Heavenly Father.
“I was healed at that moment in terms of needing that daddy,
but it took years of trying to get whole,” says DeMuth, a mother of three and
author of Building the Christian Family You Never Had: A Practical Guide for
Pioneer Parents. “I’m 41 years old and still being healed of some of the wounds
of the past.”
Unlike DeMuth, many who grow up without a father’s love are
hesitant to commit to a relationship with God.
“The father puts a template over a child’s heart for how he
or she is going to relate to men and male figures for life,” Meeker says. “It’s
the open or the closed door to God the Father, so it’s an extremely important
relationship.”
Yet many men fail to grasp the significance of fatherhood.
In a 2006 survey of dads by the National Fatherhood Initiative, 91 percent
agreed there is a father-absence crisis in this country, and 81 percent said
that men generally perform better as fathers if they are married to the mothers
of their children. However, more than half said fathers are replaceable by
mothers and by other men.
W. Bradford Wilcox, a professor of sociology at the University
of Virginia, says this statistic highlights a tragic devaluation of fatherhood.
“Fathers are not fungible,” says Wilcox, author of Soft
Patriarchs, New Men: How Christianity Shapes Fathers and Husbands. “They are
not second-class moms, or good helpers. Fathers play a distinctive and
important role as providers, protectors, disciplinarians and playmates in the
average American home. Children identify with and look up to their real father
in a way that they won’t with other men, and they typically do not view their
mothers in the same way that they view their fathers.”
Though there’s no substitute for a dad in the home, Meeker
says there is still hope for single moms.
“We can’t pretend that kids don’t need a masculine
influence,” Meeker says. “But single moms can find comfort in knowing God is
the perfect Father and surrendering that dad portion of the equation to the
Lord. They also need to ask God to show them other men in the child’s life who
could be a solid role model for them.”
CHRISTINA QUICK is staff writer for Today’s Pentecostal
Evangel and blogs at Refrigerator Art (cquick.agblogger.org).
E-mail your comments to tpe@ag.org.
