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May, 2001

Some months ago, I began this series on a father's unity of life, emphasizing that a father's leadership at home should have the same characteristics as an effective leader at work. This month, I conclude this topic by listing some characteristics of the father as leader in the home.

• He puts his wife first. In his priorities, her happiness and welfare are uppermost in importance, and his children know this. They know it because he leads them by his own example to love, honor, and obey their mother. If they ever fail to do this, they answer to him for it. (This is more than half the "secret" to effective fatherhood: striving to live as a devoted, supportive husband.)
• He has a constant spirit of team collaboration with his wife. She is his partner in a collective team enterprise. Together they endeavor as much as possible to present a united front to the children. They check with each other about decisions, large and small, that affect the children's welfare. They draw on each other's strengths and, in different but complementary ways, they support each other.
• He works with his wife to set and maintain a long-term vision (20 years ahead) about the children's growth in character, no matter what they later do for a living. Both spouses think of their children as grown-up men and women, adults with virtue: conscience, competence, responsibility, self-mastery. This distant but clear ideal forms the basis for teaching, practice, and correction now.
• He corrects his children's faults, not them personally. He "hates the sin, loves the sinner." He combines correction and punishment with affectionate forgiveness, understanding, and encouragement. He is neither weak nor harsh but rather affectionately assertive. He loves his children too much to let them grow up with their faults uncorrected.
• When he must correct anyone in the family, he does this personally and privately whenever possible. He does not chew people out in public.
• He's not afraid of being temporarily "unpopular" with his children. Their long-term happiness is more important to him than their present bruised feelings from correction. He's confident that their present resentment will soon pass, and that someday they will understand and thank him for his principled corrective efforts.
• He encourages his children, showing and explaining how to do things right, and how to do the right thing. He directs rather than manages, and makes praise as specific as blame.
• He's conscious of his authority, which is as weighty as his responsibility. He does not permit electronic entertainment to undermine that authority or undo his lessons of right and wrong. He keeps the media under discriminating control, allowing only what serves to bring the family together.
• He goes out of his way to listen to his children, and he pays close attention to their growth in character. He monitors and guides their performance in sports, chores, homework, good manners, and relations with siblings and friends. He knows what goes on in his home and inside the growing minds of his children.
• He respects his children's freedom and rights. He teaches them how to use their freedoms responsibly, and he exercises only as much control as they need. He sets limits to his children's behavior, draws lines between right and wrong. Within those limits, the children may do what they think best; beyond the lines, they begin to infringe on the rights of others - and this he will not permit.
• He wants his children to be active, and he knows that all active people make mistakes. He leads his children to learn from their blunders. He teaches them that life involves intelligent risk-taking, including the risk of error, and that there's nothing wrong with mistakes if we learn from them.

Children with a father like this, wholly supported by a great wife, have a fighting chance of becoming great men and women. They grow to honor Dad and Mom, live by lessons learned since childhood, and pass these on to their own children whole and intact.

Have confidence. Other normal men have become fathers like this, and so can you.

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