A Dad's Priorities
I just have returned from what was probably the most important 30 minutes of my entire week. As an associate pastor in our assembly, I am involved with all kinds of heady stuff. I am a member of the building committee. I work with thousands of dollars per week. I spent several hours this week with the lawyer deciding the fate of almost a half of a million dollars. I made policy decisions and held Kelowna Habitat for Humanity's Annual General Meeting. I pastored our staff and also some very needy people. But all this pales in comparison with my last 30 minutes. My daughter had a craft sale at our school and I took time to go and spend a loonie on a modest Crayola drawing and walked her to the store to buy some candy. You see I have had this gnawing feeling that she has been slightly left out this spring. My oldest son is in baseball on a team that I coach. My younger boys somehow seem to demand the necessary fathering. But there is that gut feeling you get like when you go on a trip knowing you've forgotten something. I have four little lives that are looking to me for their sense of well-being and I am learning to pay more attention to those intuitive feelings.
As a pastor I am always a little timid when talking about this subject. If you know me, you probably realize that there are very few things I feel timid talking about, whether I know anything about the topic I'm discussing or not. My timidity comes on behalf of my own four munchkins whose ages range from ten to four. They are not called to pastor or give leadership in the church as of yet, nevertheless, by virtue of being PK's (pastor's kids) they often tend to become our churches little laboratory rats. What I mean is, they are often placed on a pedestal and put under far higher expectations than most other kids. My other concern is that they haven't grown up yet. Only time will truly tell if our personal parenting techniques have paid off. Yet, I think I have struck on a few things that I can pass on to you. Parenting is not what I would classify as an exact science. It requires skills that don't come in a class room. However, I think that God gave us all we need, and very often those skills grow along with our children.
My constant thoughts are towards their character development. My most significant gift to my children will be their view of themselves and how they apply that perspective to everyday living. Some may misinterpret what I am saying as being only discipline, but this is only a small part of the shaping process . Children will view themselves through the words and actions of their parents, and I have found that you can lead a horse much easier with a carrot than a stick. We have our two oldest children in piano lessons. About six months ago my son was going through practice withdrawals. At one point he feigned a near-death experience to get out of the dreaded daily practice. In typical fashion, our wills locked and engaged. I won, but Chopin turned over in his grave. At the next encounter, I decided to listen to and compliment his playing. Both Chris and I did this on several occasions and, miracle of miracles, he began to enjoy his piano more and more; I think even Chopin would be proud. "There is nothing my children cannot do." I tell this to them over and over in as many different ways that I possibly can. We have done our best to speak to them in the language of encouragement. When they achieve, we reward; when they fail, we try to encourage. I say we try because too often we have wrapped up our own goals and expectations in our kids. I have witnessed this while coaching baseball. There are very few dads that can sit in the stands and watch their boys make a mistake without saying something to correct the error. It is at those times that kids need positive encouragement the most.
I recognize that I am unconsciously transmitting my values and my paradigms into their small little lives. Don't ask me how this mystical process takes place. Maybe it happens when I kiss them good-night or possibly when I share with them a drink of my Diet Pepsi. Because of this unseen conveyance of my wife's and my personalities into these little brain- ers, I have discovered that the most important place for me to be a Christian is at home. Now this presents some challenges for us. It's easy to be a Christian on Sunday and most of us can maintain at work, but to be a Christian at home, well this would require the power of God! Recently, my son held me accountable for one of my favourite sayings. Often as a parent it is easier to make a quick judgment so as to keep the peace than to negotiate through the detailed and complex world of the sibling legal system. Very often the prosecuting attorney for the offended sibling will shout "That's not fair!" thus seeking to take the decision all the way to the Supreme Court. I, like my ancestors from time immemorial, have retorted, "Life isn't fair," and have settled the incident with one sweeping statement. My young lad happened to be reading through Proverbs and found that it is important for all of us to treat every man with justice and fairness. I tried to convince him that this did not include parents, but he did not buy it. Thus I have concluded that I have to do more to settle the family disputes than merely shouting "Shut-up, I'm watching TV." We have to live out our Christian beliefs -- for our children will test them, not to make us fall, but to find out how true those beliefs really are.
Another acquired skill for dads is learning how to climb into the world of your children. I don't expect that this can be done for any prolonged period of time, but short mission trips into their lives will let them know that they are special to you. This can be accomplished through a variety of methods. My kids and I have had very tender and sweet moments during, what they affectionately call, "wrestle fights." Lest you get the wrong impression, this is that moment of parent-child bonding where your child tries to have warm fellowship with you by jumping on top of your spinal cord. Often this descends into flinging my children onto my bed and hoping they don't smash to the floor. My kids love it and beg for more. We consider it a good time if none of my four little warriors run crying to mom and I walk away with no pulmonary-cardia-vascular damage. Every way I have known of climbing into their world will demand the precious four letter commodity called "time." If you looked at my week I doubt you would have placed as much importance on the 30 minutes spent with my daughter as I did, and some may still be thinking it was a nice little statement for the sake of this article. I realize that the urgent crises of this week seemed to be of such great importance, yet there is more at stake than you think. I wasn't just trying to help her feel good today. Some day she's going to be paid a lot of attention by some bozo out there who will want to get his little jollies with my daughter. She will have learned what it is like for a real man to take an interest in her and she won't need his petty attention. She will be far more secure because the most significant man in her life while she was growing up took special time to make her feel important.
Dad's, you can't fix everything in ten years; do a good job today and tomorrow will take care of itself!