Manly Monday #2 - The Importance of Fathers

I have been continually amazed at the important role that fathers play in the upbringing of both daughters (in my case) and sons.

I decided to Google this topic to see what I could find... the results were interesting and gave quite a bit of information.

FatherMag

The Importance of Fathers in the Healthy Development of Children

Parent Kids Right

The Vanier Institute

And Just In Case

In thinking about the above articles and my own experience as a father, I see my daughter (especially my eldest) looking to me to be so many things, from a father figure, to a coach and advocate, to a cheerleader. I also see that she wants me to be her friend. As all of us know, this is not really something that we can do completely while being a parent...but I still try my best.

As I have been blogging, I continually read the challenges that Dads have (at times) in stepping aside from being a friend to their child and instead putting on the disciplinarian hat to maintain order and structure in what can be a pretty harried existence.

So question one for today is how do all of you maintain this balance?

As I read the above articles preparing for this post I was amazed at the statistics showing a marked increase in single fathers raising their children with mothers not in the picture. One Fifth of all single parents out there are single dads equaling about 2 Million. I feel for these Dads, as I don't know what I would do if J-Mom was no in my life. Not to say that I wouldn't do my darnedest, but I know my life would be turned upside down and it would be a HUGE transition for us all.

Most of the articles talked about a few specific things that were important for fathers being within families including:

The bread winning instinct of fathers kept families out of poverty and families with fathers continued to see increases in family income

Fathers brought order and structure into the family (I would have to say J-Mom does a good job at this in our household!)

Fathers involved in the education of their children yielded more students receiving A's

Kids with engaged father showed a greater ability to take initiative and evidence self-control

Engaged fathers of boys provide an emulation effect for their sons allowing them to have a higher rate of them becoming engaged fathers themselves

There were many other interesting studies in the above links that referred to the importance of fathers interacting with their children from an early age both emotionally and physically.

So the 2nd question for the day - How do you engage with your children?

The final piece that I thought was interesting was the idea that good fathering begets good fathering especially in boys. While this may seem common sense, the more I think about it, it does seem to make sense. As I mentioned last week about my own father - I learned many positive things and still have to watch some things that I tend to do (that he did also) so that I am engaged and not hooked to my work.

Conversely, I have talked to some Dads tat did not have the best experience of a father role model and when they found out that they were going to be a Dad they were somewhat frightened by the prospect. This is not to say that these Dads turned out to be bad fathers, but it would come to reason that they may have to overcome some issues in regards to self confidence as well as skill base to be able to overcome their past.

So the final question of the day - What did you learn from your father that you still try and remember/utilize today (this could be either positive or negative)

Thanks for reading and have a great Manly Monday!