The Father Crisis
Have you ever watched the news or scrolled through social media and thought, “Where is this world going?” I know I have, even though I graduated specifically in media and television programming and have been taught at news stations locally and across the country, “If it bleeds it leads!” Still in the back of my head, something is telling me things in this country are going down fast and what can I do about it? Not long ago I ran across this story which answered that question. I will give you the cliff notes version of it.
A business owner was preparing a speech for his company. The company in recent years was starting to decline and there seemed to be a lack of hope and heart within the company. The owner was going to host a big event for all the employees and make a huge announcement about how to turn everything around. The day of the event the owner still didn’t have a solution and needed the morning to write his motivational speech. However, the wife needed to run a few errands and could not watch their son. In an effort to keep his son occupied during his speech writing time, he grabbed a magazine, tore out a page of the world map and ripped it into tiny pieces. He told his son if the boy could put the map together he would give the son $20. The boy was eager and got straight to work. The father thought he had bought himself an hour of time but it wasn’t more than a few minutes before the son was back with the map completed! The father was shocked. He asked his son how he finished the map, knowing the boy had little knowledge of geography. The boy with guilt looked down and explained he didn’t know what the world looked like but on the back of the map was a picture of a man. I knew what a man looked like so pieced together the man slid a paper underneath and carefully flipped it over. The father gave his son $20 and had a speech for his company event. If you get the man right the world will be right.
Getting the man right is what I want to talk about. Because I believe the devils number one target is the core family. My initial thought was the church. But that’s just the surface. What makes up the church? Families do and who is supposed to lead and be an example for their families? Fathers, but what does a good father consist of or what does getting the man right look like? A good father is a provider, protector, and priest, which I will break down later.
It is a fact of human psychology that if you repeat a message enough times, you tend to believe it. If you are told over and over again that you are worthless and not needed, then eventually you may begin to accept it. In the case of fathers, this message has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think there has been, for various reasons, an increase in male narcissism, a lack of confidence, a depression, and the result has been that many men have become the very thing that the popular culture has said they are.
Yet there is a great irony in this downgrading of fatherhood. Just as we are being told how irrelevant fathers are, we are discovering in the social sciences just how vital a father is in family life. Never before have we had so much evidence of the importance of the role of a father. Whether you look at poverty rates, drug abuse, physical abuse, suicide, or any number of negative outcomes, not having a father in your life is one of the highest risk factors. I’ve heard a psychologist say that prisons are basically dormitories for fatherless men.
Now let’s go back and break down the three things a father needs to be: Provider, Protector, and Priest. Provider not only means “bringing home the bacon” but also provides an identity. Being an example of good character and providing an identity is a huge part in the development of a child. A protector might sound a little strange in the 21st century because there are no more saber-tooth tigers or large animals to fight off. Today the most common dangers a child can suffer from are emotional and spiritual harm. A father must be a steady emotional influence, an unmovable rock for the objective good, a source of good morals for his children. Finally, the father is the head of that “domestic church.” He serves his children as a spiritual teacher—a priest for his own family.
I like to borrow the quote from John F. Kennedy and change it a little to fit my faith. Don’t ask God what He can do for you but ask yourself and discern what can I do for God? I am very passionate about “fatherhood” because I love my father, I want to be a good father, and I care about the future of all our children. The last ten years God has set my heart to create Christian/Catholic video content for young kids. And for the last three years I’ve been a host of a Catholic kids show called Marcam. There is nothing more rewarding for me than my kids enjoying and watching their dad talking about Jesus.
Mark Grose