What Are Fathers For?…

In writing to the question “What Are Fathers Made Of?” Paul Harvey has given us some delightful pictures and impressions: When school grades are not “so good as he thinks they should be,” “He scolds his son… though he knows it’s the teacher’s fault.” “Fathers grow old faster than people.” Fathers can’t cry, “While mothers can cry where it shows.” “Fathers are what give daughters away to other men who are not nearly good enough… so they can have grandchildren that are smarter than anybody’s.”
Our compliments to Paul Harvey for some memorable impressions of what fathers are made of.
And now to another question, with some further thoughts on “What are fathers for?”
First of all fathers are for giving a name and a heritage to their children⎯clean and honorable. Fathers are for long, hard work, mostly their own kind of work; for not being home so much as mothers; for seeming to be pretty busy⎯and for trying to give their children things that fathers never had. Fathers are for talking with, for encouraging, for putting arms around; for understanding mistakes, but not condoning them; for disciplining when needed, then loving all the more; for being strong and forceful, and for being tender and gentle.
Fathers are something that mothers choose for us to be our fathers; for us to bear their names; for us to carry the imprint of all that they are. And if mothers are wise mothers, they will choose for us the kind of fathers who share with them a common background and belief, so there won’t be conflict and confusion, so that children and families and hearts and homes won’t be pulled apart.
Somehow, we expect mothers and fathers to be wise enough to know this before they choose each other to be our mothers and fathers, so that in loving and being loyal to them both, we won’t be pulled apart.
There is so much that fathers are for: to love us, to listen to, to keep our confidences; to help to plan our purposes; to help to make them possible⎯and for being loved, and for being shown a warm and wonderful appreciation.
(From our earliest years we remember praying to a kind Father in heaven, who loves His children, who made us in His image, who wants only to give us happiness.)
Another thing that Fathers are for is not just for now, but something we were meant to belong to⎯all of us⎯always and forever. All this is what fathers are for⎯and so much more unmentioned.