Dwight Fletcher | Father’s Day throwback

Rev Dwight Fletcher

FATHER’S DAY was celebrated last Sunday, and I congratulate all the fathers who are working diligently to be good fathers, whether you are biological fathers, stepfathers, surrogate fathers, or spiritual fathers. I say a hearty thank you to all men who, in any way, are fathering the next generation and encouraging them to be all that they can be. Parenting is a hard job, and maybe the hardest thing some of us have ever done.

Some fathers do a better job than others; some are A+ in all aspects; some are getting ‘A’ for good effort; some struggle (especially if you didn’t have a good example); but what matters most, is that as fathers give, we give our best.

For some people, Father’s Day was difficult because they might not have known or no longer have their father. God understands, and many times He sends a male figure in our lives who ‘fathers us’ in the areas we need. Sometimes it’s a teacher, an uncle, a pastor, or even someone at work. If we think back over our lives, usually we can always find one or two of those ‘surrogate fathers’, so we have cause to be thankful to our Heavenly Father and for the other fathers that He has put in our lives.

Understanding the role and importance of a father are critical, especially now when there is much challenging of the distinctions between males and females. We, however, get our definition from God, and Genesis 1:27 NIV reminds us, “God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.”

Dr Joyce Brothers, psychologist and psychiatrist, states: “… one of the problems with our society: we have a confusion about what a man is; we have a confusion about what a woman is”. This growing confusion will eventually affect how we parent. It will affect the mental health of our children. In his article, Fathers Are Not Like Mothers … But Together They Make A Great Team, Jeremy G. Schneider (marriage and family therapist) asserts, “… much of the research into parenting has been done with a baseline of what is normal or typical. Unfortunately, that baseline was developed from observing mothers for so many years. For quite some time, scientists evaluated fathers based on this baseline and then essentially graded fathers as wrong for doing it differently than mothers. So as a father, I could be fathering in the correct way as a man, but because I am being judged by female standards it seems wrong. Men are not women”.

Men and women are not the same. Dr Louann Brizendine, the author of The Male Brain and The Female Brain, states, “… the way men and women perceive the world is so profoundly different that it could indeed be said that men and women see and experience life as if we are living on different planets”. Understood properly, this is great for our children because they learn different things from fathers and mothers. Fathers and mothers make a good team, but they are different.

Men and women are designed to complement each other. One article states that “...’good parenting’ is expressed in different ways in men and women”. While mothers tend to provide more emotional warmth, nurturing love, and soothing for their children, fathers provide a strong sense of security, structure, boundaries, discipline, as well as more stimulation and challenge. Both mothers and fathers have important roles in rearing their children, and a better appreciation of where fathers fit in will lead to happier and more productive children and greater ease in parenting.