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I Am Going to Stay a Father
At a time when being a buddy to one’s son is popular, I am going to stay a father. I believe it may yet prove to be a bit of sad psychology when dads are called Peter, Jim, Art or Jack by their children. When Spock, Freud, Dewey, and William James have conspired to make dad a minor stockholder on the home’s board of directors; when women’s rights, civil rights, people right’s, children right’s and property rights have made it wrong for fathers to speak with authority, I am going to stay a father.
If a gap exists between my sons and daughters and me, I am going to work hard to understand. But, I am also going to work hard to be understood.
When they tell it like it is, I will listen, even if I like it better like it was. If old-fashioned things such as prayer, Bible study, worship and faith in God ever seem to my children to be out of it, square, or whatever---I trust God’s help to have faith enough to yet pray for them, and I pledge with Job to offer up additional sacrifices for them.
With love in our home, I will answer their questions about the facts of life, but at nudeness and lewdness I refuse to wink. Drinking and smoking are as out of place in my home as profanity and the plague. And, if experimentation with drugs or marijuana is ever a problem, it will be a violation of my prayer and request. No laissez-faire attitude will be accepted here---even if the weed is legalized and being a drunk becomes as acceptable as social drinking.
I want my children to know that I make mistakes, that I am foolish, proud, and often inconsistent. But I will not tolerate that as an excuse for my hypocrisy. I ask them to help me change, as children should, and to expect me to help them change in the methods expected of a parent. Others may look at the under 30 crowd for the wisdom to throw away the past and to say what will remain for future generations; others may let the offspring in the house determine foods, the music and the spending of the household, but I am going to stay a father.
Notice how it stays with Proverbs 22:6!
