Fathers Are Essential

            This week I have been instructed to write about fathers. My favorite topic. So favorite that I tend to walk out of Church meetings on Father’s Day because I can’t handle sitting there and listening to people talk about how great their dads were, when mine wasn’t. I was instructed to read a credible article of my choosing on the importance of fathers so that I could pick elements out of it to blog about. And when I did my I saw my life change before my eyes (which are tearing up now, by the way). I never knew, I was never able to comprehend, what fathers are supposed to do for their children. I would ask my roommates and they were never able to describe for me what I was looking for. ‘I don’t know,” they said, “just what dads do.”

            “But what is that?!” I wanted to scream. “I don’t know....” It’s more than paying the bills, and threatening and demeaning...but what? What is it that makes people want to talk about their dads and not their God in Church on Father’s Day?

In two articles written by sociologist W. Brad Wilcox I found the reasons. Here are my five things:

 1. Fathers have a unique and positively impactful style of play, marked by physical contact, arousal, and excitement (Wilcox, “Good Dad”). I’ve just spent the weekend with my aunt and uncle and three teen-aged, male cousins. I watched my uncle roughhouse and pinch and tease my cousins. I watched my cousins do it to one another. I watched my cousins play with their other cousins, three little boys between seven and two years old. They “fought” with them, lifted them up into the air, chased them around the parking lot, et cetera. Wilcox’s argument is that this kind of physical, aggressive play is something that only a father-figure can give and that is healthful and necessary. I believe it. I’ve seen it. The interaction that I saw between my uncles and cousins was, for them, an expression of love. I felt it. I felt the love in all of the punching and wrestling. And it made me feel good to see it. Wilcox states that through their style of play, “fathers...play a uniquely physical role in teaching their sons and daughters how to handle their bodies and their emotions...” (“Good Dad”).

            2. Fathers protect. On this trip with my family, I decided to stick with the boys and go to Cabela’s rather than go with my aunt to Hobby Lobby. Walking through the store with these four very tall, strapping men, I felt incredibly safe. Walking anywhere with any of them, I felt incredibly safe. And it’s not like I normally walk through Walmart feeling vulnerable and weak, but I don’t normally feel a very definite safeness either. Standing there in Cabela’s with them, I looked around and realized that if any of the other men in there were to want to harm me, that my men would instantaneously and simultaneously knock that man to the ground and pound him with both protective fervor and relish. I knew that without a doubt. And it felt really, really, really good. I felt loved. Loved and safe.

3. With this protective capability as a safety net, fathers teach their children to face challenges. Psychologist Daniel Paquette states, “[Fathers] tend to encourage children to take risks, while at the same time ensuring the latter's safety and security, thus permitting children to learn to be braver in unfamiliar situations, as well as to stand up for themselves” (qtd. in “Good Dad”). I have struggled with this risk-taking, challenge-accepting, competitiveness stuff all of my life. It was always a fight between my mother and I. She was always pushing me away from her because she wanted me to be brave and independent, but I never felt safe enough to be brave or independent. While I have grown a lot since those childhood days, I still struggle with facing a challenge. I don’t want to take on the world, I don’t want to put up a fight, I don’t want to work hard, I just want to feel that I am safe and protected and encouraged and loved. In a study referenced in the afore-mentioned article it was observed that when teaching their children how to swim fathers stood behind their children and encouraged them to face the world while mothers stood in front of them and encouraged them to come towards her. That really hit me because whenever I get down in the dumps or scared or feel that lack of love and/or protection, I always have this distinct, emotional and physical desire to have somebody stronger than me behind me. Somebody to metaphorically catch me when I fall, but also somebody to hold me up physically and tell me that it’s going to be okay because they’ve got me. I never had as a kid and I don’t have it now and it really, really sucks. Apparently, that’s what dads are supposed to be there for.

4. Fathers can help prevent depression. Children who have a strong relationship with their father are half as likely to be depressed than those who have poor relationships with their father (Wilcox, “Good Dad”). This stood out to me because I dealt with depression for five and a half long years and the majority of it was caused by my paternal relationship.

5. Anti-social behavior is linked to fatherlessness. The opposite of this, then, is that having a good father figure in one’s life is a huge factor in healthy mental and social development. Wilcox states that most of the school shootings in 2013 were perpetrated by young men who did not have solid father figures in their lives (Wilcox, “Sons of Divorce”). His research demonstrates that boys who have poor relationships with their fathers or who do not have contact with their fathers at all are nearly twice as likely to become delinquent than those boys who have strong and positive relationships with their fathers (Wilcox, “Good Dad”).

I never knew how important dads were until today. I never knew what good they could do. The world vilifies fatherhood and motherhood, it slanders the traditional family. It screams that the work of families is worthless. That all a man or a woman is worth is the number in their bank account, that a professional career is the only true way to fulfillment and happiness and success. So successful that we have had over 230 school shootings in the past 20 years (Zegers). So happy that “The leading cause of disability in the U.S. for ages 15 to 44.3.” is major depressive disorder (ADAA). So fulfilling that suicide rates have steadily increased in the past 20 years. Out of wedlock births have been at 40% since 2005 (VerBruggen) and crime rates tend to match the percentage of broken families in an area (Gottfredson & Hirschi qtd. in “Sons of Divorce”). Our society is failing because of a lack of strong families. Worthless? I don’t think so. I think that we’re being lied to right and left.

Works Cited

Anxiety and Depression Society of America (ADAA). Facts and Statistics. https://adaa.org/about-

adaa/press-room/facts-statistics

VerBruggen, Robert. “How We Ended Up With 40 Percent of Children Born Out of Wedlock.”

Institute for Family Studies. 18 December 2017. https://ifstudies.org/blog/how-we-ended-up-with-40-percent-of-children-born-out-of-wedlock

Wilcox, W. Brad. “Sons of Divorce, School Shooters” American Enterprise Institute. 16

December 2013. http://www.aei.org/publication/sons-of-divorce-school-shooters/

---. “The Distinct, Positive Impact of a Good Dad” The Atlantic. 14 June 2013.

https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/06/the-distinct-positive-impact-of-a-good-dad/276874/

Zegers, Kelly. “By the Numbers: School Shootings Since Columbine” NECN. NBC Universal,

19 April 2019.