Hero: Being the Strong Father Your Children Need

by Meg Meeker

As a dad, you set the example for treating women with respect, just as mom sets the example, or should, for respecting fatherhood.

“My mother was my hero. Through every hardship, she never criticized my father. She knew that we needed and wanted him. I don’t think many mothers could have done that. Because she never put him down, we were free to love him. We do love our dad. That’s the crazy thing. We love him. I call him periodically to check on him. He’s my dad.” Maggie never wavered in her commitment to her children. She swallowed her anger, bitterness, and hurt and left her children a legacy. She taught them how to love people who seem unlovable and to honor their father no matter what.

When kids enter your life, you don’t have to earn their respect. As their dad, you have it. From the moment they set their eyes on you, they admire you and see you as a bastion of strength and authority, and, unless you show them otherwise, of courage and heroism. You might not feel like a hero but my exhortation to you is live like you are one. Be the man they want you to be; it is, more often than not, the man you want to be—and can be.

Dads can find daughters a special challenge because they feel they don’t understand them. But you don’t have to understand your daughter to be a good father to her. You just have to be there for her, to protect her, to guide her, to set rules for her, and to affirm her self-worth by loving her.

Second, always be the grown-up.

When he yells, show you’re in command by speaking softly.

sometimes you need to see the little child inside your teen.

he wants you to be involved in his life, to show him how to be a man, even to steer him to have the right group of buddies.

A large part of a man’s identity comes from his work. But the most important work, and the most rewarding work, you’ll ever have is being a father.

As a father, your great talents as a worker are put to their best possible use, because men are, at heart, problem-solvers. Where women are verbal and intuitive and seek insights, men are pragmatic, seek solutions, and take action.

strong fathers don’t let them do it.

they don’t want to win. Really. They want confirmation of your strength, of your resolve, of your commitment to them, because they know that ultimately your rules are all about protecting them.

you just need to be tougher than your stubborn child.

a father is not a coach. A father is a leader.

Coaches can teach skills and encourage their execution, but it’s a leader who brings vision, which is another way of saying a moral framework for how life is to be lived.

really moral leadership relies on the same virtue it always has, and that’s moral courage—which means having the intestinal fortitude to do, say, and believe what you know to be right. That sense of right and wrong comes from a well-formed conscience—a conscience that doesn’t make up its own rules but that conforms itself to eternal truth.

Having a strong moral conscience, a firm idea of what is right and wrong, is part of being a man, it is part of what defines a hero, and it is part and parcel of what it takes to be a father who is the moral leader of his family.

original sin—the fact that even though we want to do good and to be good, we often do the reverse.

The moral life is a battle, but it’s not only a battle worth fighting, you have to fight it to be the man you want to be. For your children, it’s mostly an unseen battle: they simply expect you to be a moral leader, and they are right to do so. Moral courage isn’t an option.

Stan lived with moral courage. He kept his feelings about his wife to himself, because he didn’t want to complicate his children’s already complicated relationship with their mother. He could easily have thrown in the towel, left town, and started a new life. But he didn’t, because he didn’t want to hurt his kids. For eight years, he lived a life of exemplary self-sacrifice.

I didn’t want her to focus on me and stop talking.

Kids are drawn to moral courage. We all are. But it’s especially magnetic when children see it in the man they want to admire above all others, their father.

Good parents sacrifice their personal time, energy, and comfort for the benefit of their children, expecting nothing in return.

Actually, life is about a lot more than winning—or at least winning on an athletic field—and most kids know that. It’s funny, in a sad way, that parents, of all people, sometimes don’t recognize that being a good father, a moral leader, and a godly man, is far more important than being a “winner” in a game, even a big game. Tangled motives, needy parents, and twisted sacrifices can harm kids—and the kids know it.

They look to you to have their needs met, not the other way around.

Stephen did what good dads do. He tried to provide Troy with a structured life. He set down the rules of the family. And he tried to hold Troy, and all his children, accountable to them.

She clearly adored her dad—and even loved the fact that he was strict.

He was too busy with his kids.

if that’s the best she can do.

building character in our kids, because character is about who they really are—not just as baseball players or as students, but as people.

You need to lay down the rules—and to do what you know to be right (because you probably are), no matter what other kids are doing and what other parents allow.

you’re destined for so much more. And whatever you’re destined for, it’s not going to happen with you sitting on the couch, leaning left and right with the console in your hands.

Dads, on the other hand, don’t mind being the leaders and laying down the law. And that’s what you should do. Your family, consciously or not, depends on you for that very skill and virtue.

The trick, dad, is to stand firm when your wife, your daughter, and your son tell you that you’re out of touch, that you need to bend the rules a little, that they’ll be unpopular if they can’t go out or can’t wear that mini-skirt.

Good leaders do the right thing regardless of what others think.

Sports can indeed teach character. But when they do it is because they actually live up to the old adage of “It’s not whether you win or lose; it’s how you play the game.”

Nothing is more important to give yourself a strong, happy marriage, and to give your children the right sense of perspective, than to treat your wife with deference, respect, and old-fashioned courtesy and chivalry.

You can’t rewrite your childhood, but you can take charge of your future.

Like most things, it takes work; and like most things you have to work at, it’s worth it.

If you meet your past head on, you can conquer it in your current life.

Expressing love yourself is one great way to overcome the lack of love you received when you were young.

If you didn’t have a father yourself—and didn’t have the example of another great dad—don’t worry. It’s easier than you think. If you had bad examples when you were a kid, you know what to avoid. If you had good examples, you know what to emulate.

men are meant by God (I believe) and by nature, for the raising and caring of the next generation, to be good fathers.

You know that everything you say as a father matters, that it is magnified tenfold in the ears of your children.

The Lord’s Prayer has it right when we pray that God might “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” There is tremendous wisdom in that. As a family, you should cherish each other, support each other, and respect each other. We should also forgive each other for our failings and missteps, especially when our intentions were well meant.

Think how, as a boy, you would have wanted your father to address you—and correct you when you had done wrong. Think of how you would have liked your father to address your mother. Hold those mental images and work to be that man. “Kinder and gentler” isn’t that hard, if you’re committed to it.

You’re a man—so man up.

Remember that you are your own man.

Trust your instincts. God gave you everything you need to be a great dad. Within you are the strength, patience, and love of a father. So trust your instincts, and do what your gut tells you is the right thing to do, because it usually is.

Whatever happened to you in the past, when you were growing up, is done.