To explain what I feel a good father should be, I must first point out some negative things and hope that they will not only alarm you who are reading this text but also give you a better idea of what we are up against. In other words, to tell what a good father is, I believe I must first pursue the bad direction in which our fatherly images have traveled in the past few decades.

Parenting Style
One could argue that the alarmists have focused blame on what’s wrong with our youth and pointed to the parental figures in the home as the culprits, in many cases. While this may have been done many times for different reasons, it is extremely appropriate, at this time, to examine the impact of fathering in our youth’s culture.

If you were to randomly survey people off the street to ask them to define a good father, you may be very surprised by what you hear, unless you focused your efforts on a group of people who see the need for a strong family leader. You might hear that the father typically gets the sympathy of the rest of the family members and especially the attention of his spouse. He may go about this by playing vicitim. This I imagine has been drilled into our population by the one-eyed monster, we call television, that graces most all our homes.

Of course, everything cannot be blamed on television. The liberalization of our society has perverted the idea of leadership and strength, lampooning it to the point that we’ve been softened as a society, as most people avoid the lead role. Rarely is a genuine person of character with positive leadership skills elected to be our public officials. We can say the same fore the father image, as well. Perhaps a strong-willed, God-fearing head of the household projected in either real life or fiction would be damaging to the youth, with his domineering personality, causing children to be subservient and silenced in their true voice and expressions.

I say this is not so! The only way one learns true leadership and strength early in life is by example. Unfortunately, we have lost almost all of our examples as far as fatherly leadership is concerned, so there is no one to perpetuate this image. The young man grows up with a weak father and does not have anyone with whom to identify, so he does not know what a real man is. He may see dad refusing many responsibilities and neglect his family in many other ways, only for the good mother to be left to do it all.

Youth Home
So you’re probably wondering when I’m going to get around to tell you what I thing a good father is. No doubt, by describing the deficiencies of a bad father, I am telling you what a good father is. Certainly, the good father is the opposite of the weak and cowardly, irresponsible father. I would prefer seeing a strong-willed, man of character pass his child, and in doing so, observe the child somewhat flinching in fear of the repercussions of their actions, than see the reaction of most children to their father today. Call me old fashioned, but that fearful respect for the father is representative of being accountable for the child’s actions, recognizing that the good father represents values.

Protecting your child in a seductive world
A good father does the things we traditionally picture a father doing with their child. This includes teaching his kids to ride a bike, playing ball or taking them fishing; cultivating the bond between himself and his daughters, and being a strong, yet also a sympathetic figure. It’s his job to do all of these things, but first and foremost he must be the leader of his family. To take the helm of the family as the leader, guiding the household through the storm times it faces through the years.