Healthy SoFlo Issue 49 - Menprovement: A Hub Design to Improve Men's Lives

HEALTHY KIDS · JUNE 2017
STEPPING UP TO
FATHERHOOD
Yesterday was Father's Day.
And I suspect that several of
you either heard or read some
meaningful things about the
importance of being a father. If you are a
father, I hope that you got some affirmation
and affection from children in whom you
have invested much love and nurturing. I
hope you felt it appropriate to affirm your
father—and found a way to do so. To be a
father is a high spiritual calling.
One day doesn't do justice to good fathers.
One day certainly isn't enough for making an
effort to be one. And that brings me to my
point.
There is a wondrous transparency in our
nation's president about fatherhood. Barack
Obama had precious little time, presence
or influence from his father. "I don't want to
be the kind of father I had," he is quoted as
having said to a friend.
The president's
father left a
family in Kenya
to come to
the United
States for
his education. Once here, he started a
second family—only to leave his wife
and two-year-old Barack Jr. to return to
Africa with another woman. While the boy
left behind with his mother was bright,
received an excellent education and was
driven to achieve, the man at the end of the
process goes to great lengths to affirm the
importance of men who are sperm donors
becoming real fathers to their children.
“
Father's, don't exasperate your
children by coming down hard
on them. Take them by the hand
and lead them in the way of the
Master" (Ephesians 6:4 MSG).
On Father's Day 2008, the man who was
running for President of the United States
said this about fatherhood: "Any fool can
have a child. That doesn't make you a father.
It's the courage to raise a child that makes
you a father."
For this year, the now-president added this:
"We need to step out of our own heads and
tune in. We need to turn off the television
and start talking with our kids, and listening
to them and understanding what's going on
in their lives."
I will leave the psychologists to speculate
about the connection between one man's
lack of connection to his own father and
his present emphasis on the importance
of being one. And this essay certainly
isn't a Democratic or Republican take on
his statements for the sake of partisan
posturing. It is nothing more nor less than
delight in hearing one prominent male
leader of our world say something bold
and positive about the role too many men
appear to disdain.
Hard work is a good thing. Earning a
living is honorable. Achieving success and
recognition in a field cannot be wrong. But
none of these things on which so many men
have expended their energies are nearly as
valuable or satisfying as the nurturing of a
child to be a confident and functional man
or woman—and to reap the dividend of
love that comes back from that well-formed
adult soul.
By Rubel Shelly
12 HEALTHY MAGAZINE