Kids Don’t Just Need A Father Figure. They Need A Dad

  Robert Busek

America’s children need both fathers and dads in their lives to grow up strong and healthy.

A few weeks ago, after a rare torrential rainstorm, my 16-year-old son and I pulled out a ladder to check one of the gutters on our house for a blockage. After setting up the ladder, my son, whose courage has always outstripped his caution — much to his mother’s chagrin — scampered up, cleared the blockage of leaves and other debris, and came back down. It all took less than 60 seconds.

A normal man would have thanked his son, helped to put away the ladder, and moved on with his day. Not me. Instead, I felt compelled to slowly climb the ladder and see the insides of the gutter for myself. I did this not because I distrusted my son’s efforts, but because I had to prove that, at 51, I could still keep up with him and that my role in managing basic household tasks was still viable.

Feeling this compulsion, I think, is the key difference between being a father and being a dad. America’s children need both in their lives if they are to grow up strong and healthy.

The Father Is the Source of Order and Discipline

Traditionally speaking, the father represents authority and stability. His efforts outside the home, whether in the fields or in the office, provide shelter, food, and clothing to his family. In return for this labor, he is granted authority over the family, especially when it comes to disciplining children, as is evident from the instant fear when the mother utters the dreaded phrase, “You wait until your father gets home!”

Some cultures took this authority to extremes. In ancient Rome, the paterfamilias,“father of the family,” had absolute power over every family member under him, to the point that he could sell his own children into slavery (though no more than three times, according to the Twelve Tables). He could even execute his own children if he believed they had dishonored the family name, as Lucius Junius Brutus, the founder of the Roman Republic, did to two of his sons who had conspired to return the last king of Rome to power.

The Bible adds a spiritual dimension to a father’s authority. In Luke 2:51, the 12-year-old Jesus, the incarnation of God Himself, humbly subjects himself to the just power of his earthly father Joseph, demonstrating the ultimate example of the fourth commandment.