Saturday, June 14, 1997

Learning fatherhood is exciting, frightening

By MICHAEL O'CONNOR / Abilene Reporter-News

I became a father slightly more than 18 years ago.

I was there when my daughter was born, and it was one of the happiest days of my life. Three years later I followed the doctor into the delivery room and watched my sons being born, another one of the happiest days of my life.

They were also some of the most frightening days of my life. Even though I had wanted to be a father since I was a teenager, I was totally unprepared for fatherhood. And while I had a better grasp on what children were about when my sons were born, I had no idea what being the father of twins was going to be like.

I'm still learning about fatherhood. Being dad to a college student is a whole lot different than being the father of a baby or a toddler. "Because I said so" becomes an ineffective strategy relatively soon in a child's life, and by the time she's in college, none of the strategies you worked out while she was growing up seem very effective. She is, after all, a young adult, not a young child.

My sons will graduate high school next year. More college students in the offering, though at 16 they won't be adults. I'm the one who's supposed to be instructing them on the intricacies of life, but I find myself turning to them to instruct me on the intricacies of too many other things - like math or computers. Theirs is by far the easier task.

The Old Testament lays on fathers the responsibility of instructing children in the Law. They are told to be about the task all the time - in their rising up and lying down, walking and sitting. Of course the only way to accomplish the task is to live the commandments as well as talk about them.

When I was a preacher, my children heard lots about what God had to say, and they had opportunities to see me in ministry. But sometimes the ministry wore me down, and my negative reactions weren't very good instruction for them. I left pastoral ministry because it made me miserable, and in part, because I didn't want that misery to cause my children to come to despise the church.

One of the things that disturbed me in some of the churches I served was the lack of understanding among the fathers that they had the responsibility to teach their children spiritual ways.

They didn't think twice about teaching their children to hunt or fish or play ball, but religious instruction never seemed to be very high on the list - apparently that was my job and that of the Sunday School teachers, who were overwhelmingly female for the children's and youth divisions.

Some feminist groups are complaining about the rising men's movements in the church - most notably Promise Keepers - fearing it will mean their subjugation. But if the men who are involved learn to accept their responsibility to be involved in religious instruction and learn to be servants, then women have nothing to fear and our children will come to understand that being a person of faith is compatible with maleness, a message I'm not sure is always being modeled in the church.

My dad always used to put down Father's Day, saying the celebration of Mother's Day was more important. I thought that was a wrong-headed attitude when I was growing up and still believe the attitude is wrong. We fathers have important responsibilities to fulfill toward our children. So, fellow dads , let's fulfill them out of love for our children and learn to celebrate the day.

(Michael O'Connor is Online Editor for the Abilene Reporter-News and is an ordained United Methodist minister.)