Daddys are so Important

With USA Father’s Day this weekend it reminds me how important Dad’s are in their kids lives. A Dad is more than just the other half of the conception. Father’s teach their children many things about life. Everything we do as parents affects our kids.

Some fathers spend lots of time teaching their children skills, playing with them and just being there. Some father’s teach their children by the bad choices they make. Kids learn how to handle money, how to treat women and other people, how to behave in society from their  fathers regardless of whether it’s done well or not. The example you set won’t necessarily be followed but it will be remembered.

If you save hard and work hard and love your children’s mother, your children will likely follow suit because they see a father who cared about his family and strove to give them the best life he could. Who wouldn’t want to emulate that. Of course if you are a drunk, beat your children’s mother, refuse to provide for them, then children learn that too. Does that mean the next generation will behave the same? Unfortunately, sometimes. How can a child decipher good and bad behaviour from a father whom they love. They don’t see it as wrong, although deep down they may know it. A role model models a role. So if you play a bad role, maybe you’re modelling that for you kids.

The King works very hard, well into the early morning hours many nights but he has the luxury of working from home, so when the kids get home from school, he’s here. He can stop and have a chat, discuss the days events and be present in their lives. They don’t need him to be there for very long… 15 minutes and everyone is good but that 15 minutes could just what is required that day to boost the kids up and let them know dad cares. I think it’s a shame some father’s only see their children on the weekends because they leave before the kids get up and return home after the kids have gone to bed during the week. Tough all round but I like to hope those dads do their best to make it up the best they can spending quality weekend time with the kids.

It’s a tough job, I think dad’s get a bum wrap. They are expected to be the family provider but also have time to spend with the children. Today where many households have both parents working the dad is often expected to help with household chores too. How does it look to your children? Does Dad help with the housework? cook dinner sometime? Even shop? It’s a different world to navigate than our parents had where traditionally dad worked and mum stayed at home, tended house and did those things. I’m not saying it was the best way but a simpler way perhaps. Life has become so complicated.

Kids want time, oh they’ll take the latest and greatest gadget as a guilt bribe, who wouldn’t but what they really want is to do stuff with their dads.
It’s those special things I remember about my dad. Not what he provided or bought for me but the hours we spent at the back table talking about thing. The things he told me and shared. Things from his childhood and how his father behaved and how it shaped him as a man and father. It’s where I learned to form opinions, he did a good job with that one right?!

There’s another bum wrap…. the divorced dad. How does that affect relations with kids? How hard it must be for dads to connect with their children when they only see them every other weekend or however the arrangement is set up. Not to mention not all divorces are amicable and let’s face we women can be vindictive bitches….sometimes poisoning our children against their father. It’s a modern world with many broken families, blended families, single parent families today.

I really feel it’s important to have a strong positive male role model in your children’s lives, especially if you have boys. How else can they learn to be a man and a dad. Society has changed and values have changed but our core instinct and fundamental behaviours, I think, remain the same and it’s our jobs to provide positive role models for our children as best we can. If dad is not in the picture, maybe an uncle or close friend can step in and help teach those kids how a man behaves in the world. I think as a society we have a responsibility to help our children grow in a positive way. I yearn for the day that good adult role models come into my kids lives to support the work we as parents have done to teach and encourage our children to be good, happy, well adjusted, responsible adults. For some kids those role models are the only hope they have.

So don’t forget Dads, although we may not always say it, we think you rock!
Happy Father’s Day to all those Dads out their doing the best they can for the little people they love. And to those Father’s gone too soon we thank you for all you gave to us and the sacrifices you made.

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY AMERICA