Dad's Den

Dads Initiate, Serve and Guard Love

2012-01-11T03:34:00.000-08:00

My previous article was a reminder that God is the author of all life. ("Call no man Father" refers to the sole authorship of life that belongs to God the Father.) The Father initiates life, and man as father is to share in the initiation of life. We see that the guardianship of life begins before the new life. A father must guard the civilization of love from the harm from outside but also from himself. That means that a man must guard every woman from his own desires, which stem not from true sonship or fatherhood, but from self gratification.
Every woman is to be a subject of love and not an object of use. This begins when a man is young as he must learn to treat all human beings and all women with proper dignity and respect. He is to learn to value virginity as a gift of innocence that is to be guarded in every way both in himself and in others. As a boy grows into manhood the responsibility grows. He is to preserve himself and others for the gift of self. Even after marriage a man must guard his wife and children from his own frailty. This is why the Holy Father has reminded men not to lust after their wives for it makes them an object of use and abuses their true dignity. It is that dignity which was authored by God that he must serve. Contraception is not a service of the gift of self but rather a violation of the gift and serves only selfishness, fear and the lack of trust in Divine Providence.

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Tom Hardy, Teen Daughters and Modesty

2012-01-09T04:59:00.000-08:00

Are there any Dads out there who have had experience in the frustrating quest to give good criteria to their teenage daughters on the subject of style in choosing clothes? My answer to the problem has been to say the least, unorthodox. It requires a strong stomach, lots of patience and in some cases, some real cash. I'm talking about…… Shopping with Dad. Yikes!!

Father Knows Best

First let me suggest some notions that may seem controversial but I have found to be true.
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Dads Communicate

2011-12-19T06:28:00.000-08:00

When we think of communication we normally consider things such as talking, listening and understanding. However, we would like to draw a distinction between these and what constitutes "true" communication. Talking, listening and understanding are communication skills and are mostly taught within the daily activities of family life. True communication, is more than these skills. It is based upon those things that are mutually shared or loved by both parties. If both parties value baseball or education, then baseball or education becomes a matter of communication. If it is not mutually held, then it becomes a matter of information. Information is fine but it does not have the capacity to unite people.
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Workaholism: It Can Even Happend to Nice Guys

2011-12-13T16:37:00.000-08:00

Many fathers are consistently working far too many hours. We may work these hours because the office culture seems to require it. Or, our employer may actually demand that we spend an excessive number of hours on the job. For some of us, work may be an escape from the demands of family life. Regardless of the reasons we spend too much time on the job, it should be clear that excessive work is a disorder that can ruin one's marriage and family life.
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Dads Give Good Example (Part 2)

2011-11-29T01:27:00.000-08:00

Ward Cleaver or James Bond? (Part 2) If we return to the argument for eliminating the "Ward Cleavers" from family programming we have to ask ourselves, "were the values of those family stories unreal?" Can anyone say that the replacement, "Ted Bundy", is real?" I have heard the actors and directors of "Married, with Children" say how they believe they are expressing the life of the American family. Can any woman say that this is what they want their husband to be? Or that this is what they want the father of their children to be like? Or do they see Bundy's wife as the prototype they seek to emulate? Are these children the models we would like to see our own children molded into? For that matter, we must ask, "Who on television today is a "real father."
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Dads Give Good Example (Part 1)

2011-11-24T18:40:00.000-08:00

Ward Cleaver or James Bond? Children are formed by the models that they see. The idea of a father was once expressed in the form of "Leave it to Beaver's" "Ward Cleaver" and other fathers in a number of evening shows such as "Father Knows Best," "Donna Reed Show" etc. Television producers removed these role models under the guise that they "were not real." A fellow recently made the claim that boys would look at their own dad and see that he was not Ward Cleaver
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Modesty in Dress: Fighting the Good Fight

2011-11-22T03:36:00.000-08:00

Any father with a daughter over the age of ten knows what a struggle it can be teaching them the importance of dressing modestly. It is difficult because of the incredible peer pressure they face to be "with it" and dress like all their friends. Indeed, many of the styles today are designed to be "sexy"--and these styles are available for girls much younger than we may like to think.
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Gerard Wegemer, Thomas More, Educator (Part II)

2011-11-11T03:12:00.000-08:00

Freedom and the Role of Parents (Part 1)

2011-11-09T05:39:00.000-08:00

The parents of teenagers hear much about freedom from their children. In short they want more of it. Since freedom is a good thing, we parents are usually sympathetic with our kids' wishes and we struggle with the balancing act of granting them more privileges while not abdicating our responsibility to restrict their activities to those that are appropriate for their age and maturity. In sorting out this issue, it may be helpful to consider the true meaning of freedom and its implication for parents and their children.
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Review of "Love and Economics" by Jennifer Morse.

2011-10-25T03:57:00.000-07:00

Business people are always curious to know what the economy would "look like" if based on Catholic social doctrine. We won't really know until it happens but it's helpful to get the thoughts of an economist speculating with a Catholic mind. A "Catholic mind"? One might imagine reading the Fathers in Latin. I doubt that the author of this book ever did such a thing, yet the working of a Catholic mind is evident. If I read between the lines correctly, it is a Catholic mind from which the shattered remains of the modern kaleidoscope have been removed shard by shard.
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Reinventing Dad: Good Reasons, Not Good Behavior

2011-10-18T04:38:00.000-07:00

Good reasons - not good behavior
Dad especially should be attuned to the danger of kids doing right things for wrong reasons. Such inadequate reasons as: “Because I said so” or “that’s the way we do things around here, kiddo” or “tough, that’s life” or “what will the neighbors think?” and hundreds more of the same ilk. External compliance, especially in non-essentials, is not the goal, especially as the children grow older and admit of reasonable appeals to their “better angels.” So, explain, explain, explain, going as deep as you both can, again as privately as possible. It may seem a lot simpler and easier just to bark, but here too a stitch in time saves nine headaches and heartaches.
Help them to see that their unthinking actions and omissions have consequences that impinge on others no less than on themselves, not to mention family finances. Help them to see how easily we all can be ambushed and deflected by pleasures, fears, selfishness and unthinkingness. Consequently curbing these self-defeating tendencies is the task of the basic cardinal virtues. Striving to acquire these good habits is therefore in their own best interests: something they above all owe themselves. Virtuous, good behavior should never be authoritatively imposed from without nor seem merely the onerous price for domestic tranquillity.

Dinnertime: The Heart of Family Life

2011-10-11T23:14:00.000-07:00

Family life today can be rather hectic and stressful. Between the demands of our professional life, the kids' activities and school assignments and the challenge of managing the logistics of getting everyone where they are supposed to be at the time they are supposed to be there, it's a wonder that there is any truly family life at all. It seems there is little we can do to avoid the rat race short of drastically limiting the number of our activities and commitments.
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Dads Give Example of Good Character

2011-09-26T01:51:00.000-07:00

Parents educate their children primarily through their example. Daily life affords innumerable opportunities for parents to silently or to vocally stress what they morally value. These values are the virtues that develop character, which is so essential to human happiness. They are simply good habits, which allow one to live a moral life and to get along well with others. They enable people to respect themselves and their neighbors, thus becoming a means to personal fulfillment and happiness, which is true freedom. Human dignity is guarded and expressed through such virtues as kindness, loyalty, friendship,
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Reinventing Dad: Act, Don't React

2011-09-10T03:54:00.000-07:00

Act. Don't react. In a nutshell the problem with most dads is that in this parenting game they feel so inferior to their wives, who operate much more naturally on the basis of intuition and instinct. That liability, coupled with a shortage of time and updated role models, makes for interior complications and exterior hesitations, when and if dad gets around to asking himself what he's supposed to be doing back at the ranch
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Passing On the Faith

2011-09-09T01:36:00.000-07:00

The responsibility we assume by bringing a new life into the world is truly awesome. I'm not referring to the responsibility of providing food, clothing, shelter and education, as challenging as that might be. After all, a well-run institution can provide these things to children. The most important responsibility that a father has toward his children is to be the example that will inspire his kids to embrace his faith and grow in the virtues.
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Gerard Wegemer, Thomas More, Educator (Part I)

2011-09-08T03:50:00.000-07:00

Thomas More, highest government official in the English kingdom under Henry VIII, was an artful parent. In the time before government schools, a dad had to be creative in the education of his children and More was a skillful educator in character. Gerry Wegemer, More scholar, finishes his report.

Sir Thomas More's primary concern in the education of his children was to teach virtue. But how to teach virtue has been a question for parents in every age. More had observed and studied many ways. He was familiar, for example, with the way of the Stoics, who stressed the importance of fighting passion until it no longer exerts its influence. This position was best articulated by Seneca and Cicero. Yet, although More borrowed freely from these authors and recommended their writings, he did not choose the Stoic way. Why? Because he did not think virtue could be founded simply on habit. True, all virtues require habits; but for More, what was of greatest importance was what would motivate and direct those habits. He wanted his children to act from love. Thus, he saw the primary task of education as cultivating a good conscience and noble loves. And in that order of importance—conscience first because one must constantly use good judgment to discern what is indeed noble and good.

Also necessary for proper education of the soul would be what More called "right imagination and remembrance," a state of mind born of careful instruction and good conversation. The need for "right imagination" is especially evident when one considers the problem of "remembering" during a time of pressure or temptation. At such a time it can be virtually impossible to stay focused on what is right—unless one has been properly prepared beforehand.
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Reinventing Dad: Lavish Love on Your Wife

2011-08-25T01:31:00.000-07:00

Over the next months, I'll make my contribution to the new millenium by suggesting nine possible ways to rejuvenate and reinvent fatherhood.

Before doing so, however, let me anticipate a warranted objection from any readers who wonder whether I'll also reinvent mom. No, for two simple reasons. I am not alone in opining that there's little to reinvent on that front. And even if there were, most wives and mothers, be they current or future, are not about to cede any redesign to a mere male of the species. Mom merely has to be motivated via her husband's unconditional love to discharge her customarily self-sacrificing role to make both hubby and children shine.
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Reinventing Dad: Good Dads Should Be Seen and Not Heard

2011-08-23T07:13:00.000-07:00

Good dads should be seen and not heard. This piece of advice is obviously linked to the preceding one [benignly neglecting your kids]. It represents a considerable departure from the olden view of father as authoritative patriarch. By it is meant, positively, that dads should be very busy and quite vocal--but behind the scenes, not throwing their weight around in public. Only half in jest, I've been known to suggest that the best service to the family (and the nation) that Congress could enact would be to offer a tax break to those families who add a den for dad onto their homes. If our reinvented dad is to do a better job on the
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Reinventing Dad: Benignly Neglect Your Kids

2011-08-18T09:32:00.000-07:00

You may think I'm trying to complicate your life with all these jabs and steps. Not so. Last month I recommended that you "lavish love on your wife." If you keep her happy by honoring and revering her, you can virtually forget about everyone else, yourself included. That's why my current counsel reads:
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David Isaacs, Why Worry About Virtues?

2011-08-03T15:33:00.000-07:00

For a lot of people the word "virtue" sounds like something out of moral literature from the last century. Therefore virtues have no bearing on present-day life. What a mistake! A virtue is a good active habit. This makes the idea of virtue a bit more attractive. There is another "definition", though, which is even more practical. A virtue is that thing we love to find in others towards us but it is a thing awfully difficult to develop in our lives. We all like others to be understanding, generous, loyal, sincere and just to us.
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A Back to School Grab Bag

2011-07-18T20:07:00.000-07:00

Here's a back-to-school grab bag of tried-and-proven family policies and some short, authoritative arguments on topics of concern for every parent.
Sex Education: Jacqueline Kasun writes in her The War against Population: "It would not take a week, much less a semester, to teach basic biological facts of life. What takes so much time [and spread over some 8-10 years, no less] is slowly but steadily undermining the values their parents have taught them and replacing those values with new attitudes that [brand as harmless] adultery, abortion, homosexuality, and the rest of the secular religion that parades as 'sex education.'"
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When Daughters Start Dating

2011-07-15T06:23:00.000-07:00

Do I intercept the boy at the door with a stern tete-a-tete before letting him date my daughter for the first time? Or is it better for me to say nothing, trusting in all she's seen and absorbed on the home and church fronts, trusting in her good judgment?

Yes, Dads, let's pull our heads out of the sand and together confront another variation on the old lenient-strict dilemma. Of course, I'm assuming in your neck of the woods that high schoolers still date instead of just hanging out or, heaven forbid, just hooking up….
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Does Your Family Have a TV Policy?

2011-07-09T11:11:00.000-07:00

As fathers, we have a serious obligation, in collaboration with our wives, to ensure that the tone of our homes is truly Christian. This is done by fostering a cheerful, warm and cooperative environment within the home--and by controlling the material that enters the home through television, radio, magazines, etc. Parents have the right and obligation to "censure" anything that can influence the tone of the home in which they are raising their families.
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Six Good Ways to Avoid Spoiling Your Kids

2011-07-03T05:06:00.000-07:00

Let's thank Mr. and Mrs. Carlton Zimmerman from Minnesota for these helpful hints:

Whether you give regular allowances or not, the important thing is that their pockets be relatively empty. Instead give them lots of love, understanding, respect, company and freedom.
Just as parents should anticipate and plan chats on the facts of life, so too dad should periodically acquaint each child with the family's financial facts of life.

I CAIN'T JUST SAY NO

2011-06-30T09:05:00.000-07:00

"Just say no" is the advice given to teens nationwide by the proponents of abstinence from sex, drugs and booze. The slogan is intended to bolster youngsters in the face of peer jeer, lest they get swept off their feet by the crowd. But herd pressures are the least of their problems. The biggest challenge is for them (for all of us) to find something worthwhile to say Yes to. Until they do, they will often lack the mental-spiritual stamina even to whisper an occasional No. Nowhere more than here is it true that nature abhors a vacuum.
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