Fathering the Nation

Editor: Each of us plays a critical role in helping to father our nation by the way we treat the men in our society that eventually enables them to provide the leadership we expect of them. Nations are built from strong families that should be led by men.

We expect men to provide moral and spiritual guidance to the family. We expect them to provide security for the family. We also expect them to provide food, clothing, and shelter for the family.

Developing a sense of right and wrong does not come naturally and must be cultivated. What is moral, fair, and ethical all go to help make us persons of good conscience. Father leads out in this sphere. Our Christian culture is the context in which our characters develop. Father, being the priest of the household, plays a key role in shaping the values of the children. Regular worship at home allows for bible readings and discussions whose purpose will include helping children to make the right choices. Consequences of actions, and reflections should help better choices to be made in the future.

The church reinforces what is taught at home and provides a larger group for socialization with opportunity for more choices to be made. The needs of the church group are also taken into consideration besides the needs of the family.

Church provides father with more opportunity to lead.

The home is the context where children learn to be responsible. Learning to do all the things to maintain a home cannot be taken for granted and children must be able to cook, wash, clean, manage bills, and grow food crops.

Apprenticeship use to be the common method of instruction, but schools have assumed more of this role from father at home. For schools to be successful, some elements of this must be maintained if our boys are to learn skills and become successful men and fathers. While the best schools are academic by nature, we can still provide for the needs of learning a skill after the core subjects (English, Math, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics) are done. All boys leaving school should have a skill that can be used to support his future family. Schools should enable men to create their own job.

Work defines man and gives him a sense of worth and value. It provides a means for him to support his family. Public assistance and handouts can be very demoralizing as they create a dependency syndrome that is readily transferable to the next generation. Therefore, the focus should be on creating work and helping men to create their own work. Invariably, many now on public assistance are persons who would have worked all their lives and should have contributed to the Social Security System. All efforts should be made to collect all the contributions and so enable dignified collection of pensions rather that public assistance.

On this Father’s Day, we are all appreciative of the care, love, protection,education and sustenance we have benefited from those who fathered us.

Anthony Stewart, PhD