Fatherhood - what it is and what it's for | Tony Payne (ISBN: 1876326999)

The captain and the nice-guy

Most Christian books on parenting end up being a list of dos and don’ts — ideas and techniques for raising positive, healthy, believing children. In his excellent new book on fatherhood, Tony Payne argues that such books are simply missing the point...

All fathers have a personal style, a particular way of doing things.

My own father’s style was fairly typical of his generation, judging by what other men my age have told me — that is, a father who regarded his actions as more significant than his words, which were few; who expressed his love for his family through tireless, selfless toil; who didn’t have much to do with domestic chores or child-raising apart from a few clearly defined tasks (clearing the table after dinner, washing up); and who would have considered running off with another woman as an utterly low and cowardly act beyond contempt.

He was physically and emotionally strong; a loyal, hard-working, no-nonsense man whom I only ever saw cry once. I can’t remember him playing with us much, apart from occasionally joining in our fiercely competitive backyard cricket games. And as we got older, he presided over epic games of rummy in the kitchen around the formica table, with a blanket over the top to stop the cards slipping too much. But somehow it didn’t seem wrong that he didn’t play much. Playing wasn’t his thing. He was a worker, and that took most of his time and energy.

Two models of Dad

Like many men of my generation, I can’t suppress the wish that Dad had played a little more; that he’d been more the kind of intimate, caring dad who gives you hugs, and talks to you about your day. But that wasn’t him. It wasn’t his style. He was of the generation of men who said, ‘You’ll be wanting to speak to mother’ after about 15 seconds of conversation when I phoned home from college.

The question is: What is my style? And is it fixed and unchangeable, or should I try to change my personality so as to be a better dad?

As I talk to other fathers about these sorts of things, they talk about two stereotypes that they find themselves falling into. I’ll call them the Captain and the Nice-Guy.

The Captain is Christopher Plummer’s character in The Sound of Music, or if your knowledge of movies runs more to something in the last 20 years, Robert de Niro’s sadistic, intimidatory dad from Meet the Parents. He’s the strong, reserved authoritarian Master and Commander, who runs a tight ship, whose word is law, and who is feared and respected by his children, as he gazes down upon them from the heights of his throne.

The Nice-Guy is James Dean’s wimpish father in Rebel without a cause, or Robin Williams’s lovable but ineffectual dad from Mrs. Doubtfire, who has lots of fun with his kids but imposes almost no boundaries, leaving his wife to be the bad cop and clean up the mess. He’s the friendly, nice-guy dad whose attempts at telling his kids what to do are ignored, and who has all the presence, authority and leadership of Mr. Bean.

Best of both?

Are they the only options? Or is it possible to take the best of Captain von Trapp and the best of Robin Williams, and come up with the perfect style for the modern dad? To be tough yet tender, respected yet hugged, obeyed yet loved? Robin Williams just about manages it, but only by dressing up as Mrs. Doubtfire. My problem is that I tend to get the worst of each, and end up coolly detached and irresponsible, merciless and disorganised, strident and ineffectual!

Is there a model, an example, we can look to and emulate? Chalk up Big Advantage in Being Christian #247: the perfect model of the fatherliness that we long for is found in the portrait of our Heavenly Father, sketched in bold clear strokes across the pages of the Bible. It’s everything we’d like to be, and hope in our best moments we might become.

Well, he’s got the majesty and authority thing well under control. He’s unquestionably in charge. He expects obedience, and there are clear consequences for disobedience. But we also continually see him exercise his great power and authority for the sake of others: providing his creation with good things, remaining faithful to his promises, giving good gifts to his children. He gets angry, but he’s slow to anger and maintains his steadfast love to thousands. He rebukes his children because he loves them. He patiently teaches and guides them for their good, and he forgives them time and again for their stupidity and wickedness.

Jesus urges his disciples to be like their Father in heaven in Matthew 5.43-45.

Extraordinary example

Another extraordinary example of God’s fatherliness is in Hosea 11. This chapter likens Israel to a wayward son and God to a mistreated father: ‘When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them (Hosea 11.1-4).

God has been a great dad to Israel. He’s taught them to walk. He’s led them along with cords of kindness, like one of those little harnesses toddlers like me used to have in the 60s. He has healed them, loved them, lifted the yoke from their shoulders, and fed them.

Yet they repaid him by kicking him in the teeth. Like children who respond to their father’s voice by running further away, Israel (also referred to as ‘Ephraim’ in this passage) rebelled against their Father and worshipped other gods. And like a father with a disgrace of a son, God would have been quite within his rights to wipe them completely, to disinherit them, to disown them, to destroy them. But notice what he says next: ‘How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my burning anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath’ (Hosea 11.8-9).

Too late?

I understand what this passage is saying only too well, for I am a man, and not God! When I am ‘executing my burning anger’ against the kids, there is a certain point when the pressure-cooker explodes, when steam is hissing out of the ears, and they all of a sudden go very quiet and apologetic. ‘We’re sorry, Daddy.’ But by then it is too late. It is much too late. By that stage there are very few forces in heaven or hell that can prevent the devastation that is to follow. How typical it is of human fathers to vent their anger and frustration against their children.

God, however, is God and not a man. He is altogether different, which is another way of saying that he is the ‘Holy One’. That’s what ‘holiness’ means. It means ‘set apart’, ‘different’, ‘in a class of its own’. God is holy, and he shows it in this instance by deciding not to come in wrath against Israel. His compassion in this case trumps his anger.

It’s a wonderful picture of God’s kindness and patience towards his wayward people. It’s the perfect combination of severity and compassion, of awe-inspiring authority and oceanic mercy.

We could do no better in our quest for a ‘style’ than to meditate on the character of God, our heavenly Father, and see how in him justice and mercy meet, and power is mixed with gentleness.

Most of us, according to our personalities, lean to one end of the spectrum or the other. Some of us need to learn how to be tough; others need to learn to express our strength in gentleness.

Encourager

The Bible offers encouragement in both directions. To the overly strict, God says, ‘Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord’ (Ephesians 6.4). Don’t assume, in other words, that being the strict disciplinarian is a virtue in itself. Beware becoming the father who picks them up for every little thing, who forgets that children are sometimes annoying and frustrating not through evil intent, but just because they’re kids.

For the overly lenient, God provides the tragic example of Eli, the Old Testament priest of Israel whose delinquent sons were a public disgrace. When God finally judges the two boys, he also judges Eli along with them ‘because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them’ (1 Samuel 3.13).

This in fact is true strength: to be strong as iron when confronting problems and difficulties, and not to yield in the face of pressure; to follow through on our words and restrain our children when it is needed. And yet also to be strong enough within ourselves to open up and play with our children, and let them be close to us. It’s not an over-abundance of strength that prevents fathers being gentle, caring and intimate with their children. Often it is the deeply insecure man, the man whose soul is weak and fragile, who cannot open up to a child, be silly with them, praise them openly, and hug them affectionately.

The ‘style’ of the biblical father is authority and respect without tyranny and abuse; love and kindness without weakness and neglect. And it owes this marvellous balancing act to the Heavenly Father who created human fatherhood.

This article is an edited chapter from Tony Payne’s new book Fatherhood, available from the Good Book Company on 0845 225 0880, price £8.00.

Fatherhood - what it is and what it's for