Proper fatherhood rhythms in the modern West are difficult to navigate. You have so many things competing for your attention and strain. Money, the search for significance, leisure, digital distractions, meaningful work, providing comfort and a life for your tribe. Compound that with striving to live as a righteous family staying faithful to God in the Earth, and you’ve got an epic on your hands.
It is maybe easy to forget how epic.
How very intrinsically, deeply epic the nature of fatherhood is.
The work of the Deceiver is to get men to believe that the adventure is to be had without — that it’s “out there” somewhere, inherently else and other. A challenge, a thrill, an experience we’re missing out on. Nagging and gnawing on the inside can be the feeling that, while we’re playing with or reading or praying with or caring for our kids, there’s something “more productive” we could be doing with our time. Recent studies show this couldn’t be further from the truth.1 The feeling is a lie. Feelings tend to do that.
How countercultural (per usual) that the location of the real adventure is within — right here, in the home, in the heart of the family. God’s Word likens rearing children to launching arrows out into the world, full of power and vitality and honor and legacy that blesses a father’s heart.2 Our great privilege is to partner with God in shaping young souls to know and glorify Him and enjoy His good Creation.
Our old lion of a 26th President, Theodore Roosevelt, had a wonderfully refreshing perspective on the importance of being an engaging father:
“There are many kinds of success in life worth having. It is exceedingly interesting and attractive to be a successful business man, or railway man, or farmer, or a successful lawyer or doctor; or a writer, or a President, or a ranchman, or the colonel of a fighting regiment, or to kill grizzly bears and lions. But for unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.”3
AMEN. I’m convinced:
Raising humans to become God-imaging beacons of goodness is where the action is.
Children are the truest and most noble of adventures humanity has.
Spending time building deep and meaningful connections with our children is vital for them to become fully-developed and confident disciples of Christ. And we can do that with the simplest of life rhythms, engaging, playing and adventuring with our young ones by our side, learning and laughing all the way.
Fathers — do the little things. The extra mile (literally). Another story. Half-hour more of playing ball. One last piggyback ride. A final tired race in the grass. You won’t be able to one day.
Push through the fatigue, the mental diversions, emotional laziness. It’s not just playing.
It’s everything… to them.
Below is a poem embodying some of these ideas. I hope it resonates with you and any you share it with.
One More
Another sigh, patinaed with Exhaustion and Busy thoughts, interrupted when Through the clouds I hear Saccharine syllables drenched In bliss: “One more” — blanketstorm — uniform — piggyback — blockstack — footrace — funnyface — bellylaugh — lavaraft Weariness becomes a phantom of Yesterday, and my defenses Crumble anew: “One more” — And my Jericho falls To the trumpet calls of Frivolity. Scamper scuffle chortle chuckle; New hopes, horizons, and Exploits of grandiose invention beckon As the sweet song chimes again: “One more” — Each one a drop in the bucket; Numbered, finite, fleeting as The sunshine gallops westward. The hours, the toil, the disciplines long... ... and yet the years seem so short and small from Up here. “One more” — "Please, Daddy?" — "Again, again!" — And with revelation blessed, I acquiesce, And run, and romp, and roar, Because I recognize That approaching swiftly will come The Time That there will not be Any more.
All4kids. (2023, May 12). A Father’s Impact on Child Development. Child Abuse Prevention, Treatment & Welfare Services | Children’s Bureau. https://www.all4kids.org/news/blog/a-fathers-impact-on-child-development/. Enlightening article about fatherhood; check out these facts: “Children who feel a closeness to their father are: twice as likely as those who do not to enter college or find stable employment after high school, 75% less likely to have a teen birth, 80% less likely to spend time in jail, and half as likely to experience multiple depression symptoms.”
Psalm 127:4-5
Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography as cited in The American Historical Review, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Apr., 1914), pp. 670-672.