The Power of fathering

I recently heard that my adult son took part in a major debate at Melbourne University on the subject of leadership and its potential use for good or evil. He closed his speech with a story I had told him when he was a child. 


The story was about a farming community that had gathered together for harvest. At the end of a tiring day, during darkness as they were packing up, they realised a small boy was missing. For hours in the darkness they searched for him without success. Next morning at first light, they began their search again. An old farmer suggested that they all join hands and thoroughly search the fields. They quickly found the little boy, but he had died of exposure during the night. His distraught mother cried out, “If only we’d joined hands sooner!”


Dads have the ability to join hands with their wives and their children to make their family a place where children gain security, significance and self-esteem.


Research tells us that a father influences his children in many ways; most notably he exerts influence on the following: 


• The intellectual ability of his children
• The behaviour his children will model
• The genetic background that his children receive
• His children’s ethnic heritage and their position in the family structure
• The occupational choices his children make 
• The material resources his children are left with when he is gone
• The ways his children will behave towards their offspring 
• The attitudes his children will hold regarding their children
• The memories his children will have after he dies or separates from the family 


When spelled out like this, the power we as fathers have over our children’s future is mind boggling.