Pit stops for a father

“I’d tried to reach my accountability partner all day
without success. I left him a message to call me immediately… I knew he would
get the message. When he finally called, I was not near the telephone and before
I could reach it, the answering machine had picked it and I didn’t know. With much tears, I shared
my struggles with pornography and sexual addictions with my friend, who
listened patiently. He encouraged me and prayed with me. When I got upstairs, I
noticed my 8yr old son was sitting by the answering machine. He’d been
listening to the discussion.”

This was the tragic mess a father found himself in, as told
by Joe Dallas.

Being a good dad is tough. Biblical models are surprisingly
few.

It’s a great privilege to be called Daddy. Sometimes I
wonder if I really understand the scope of my responsibilities as a father to
two amazing sons. I live in a culture where we call some key leaders in our lives “daddy” or “mummy” depending… But I wonder how much I know of these daddies
and how much of me they know.

How close can we get with no masks on? What should be the
healthy boundary? How much freedom do they need today? What part of me should
be private?

“Grandma, is it true that when daddy was my age you use
to spank him?” That was a question my son Ed asked my mother last year. Shocked,
she lied to him, thinking she needed to protect me by painting a good image of
me to her grandson. I don’t blame her.

But he was just asking to confirm what I’d told him about my
childhood. Luckily, I was there to correct and manage the apparent confusion.

Here are a few more questions I’m asking myself this weekend as I
think of my role as a dad.

      1.      What do my sons consider our family core values
aside what I say they are?

      2.     
What would they rather keep as secret from me?

      3.      Am I making my sons work hard to gain my
approval?

      4.     
Do they look forward to our time together?

      5.     
What was the best fun time we had together? What
of the worst… most painful?

      6.     
Are we dysfunctional in any way?

      7.     What am I doing they think I should stop or
spend less time doing or start doing, to them or with them or for them?

As I read Seth Barnes’ blog on
parenting here,
I noticed I scored pretty low in the list he made on things parents may need to repent to their children for:

        �         If you disciplined
them out of anger.

        �        
If you neglected
them at some point as they grew up.

        �        
If you yelled at
them or abused them in some way.

        �        
If you failed to
love your spouse as you should have.

        �         If you didn’t
protect them adequately (from pornography, from violent video games, from the
opposite sex, from family members, from abuse).

We can perform poorly in any other discipline but not
parenting our children to be passionate lovers of Jesus and believers in the
values we’ve set out to pursue and project.

Give this job your very best shot. My mentor Timothy Olonade told me, “…those boys are kids for a very short time. They shouldn’t grow up trying to figure out what they missed because you weren’t there.”

As a father, how are you doing with this great task of parenting your
children? Do you have anything to ask them to forgive you for?