Being Intolerant

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J a m e s C . D o b s o n , P h . D .

FATHerHood

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Fatherhood by James C. Dobson, Ph.D.

For three decades Dr. James Dobson has been America’s leading authority and advocate for the family. Taken from the bestseller Dr. Dobson’s Handbook of Family Advice, this Special Report is full of helpful information for families at all stages. Let’s read along now as Dr. Dobson discusses the extremely important role of fathers in the life of a family.

Fathers and Daughters

Long before a teenage girl finds her first real boyfriend or falls in love, her attitude toward men has been shaped by her father. Why? Because the father–daughter relationship sets the stage for all future romantic involvement.

If a young woman’s father is an alcoholic and a bum, she’ll spend her life trying to find a man who can meet the needs her father never fulfilled in her heart. If he’s warm and nurturing, she’ll look for a lover to equal him. If he thinks she’s beautiful and feminine, she’ll he inclined to see herself that way. But if he rejects her as unattractive and uninteresting, she’s likely to carry self-image problems into her adult years.

I’ve also observed that a woman’s relationship with her future husband is significantly influenced by the way she perceived her father’s authority. If he was overbearing or capricious during her earlier years, she may be inclined to precipitate power struggles with her husband throughout married life. But if Dad blended love and discipline in a way that conveyed strength, she may be more comfortable with a give-and-take marriage characterized by mutual respect.

So much of what goes into marriage starts with a girl’s father. That’s why it behooves us as dads to give our best effort to the raising of those kids around our feet.

A Good Man, Who Can Find?

Remember when pot was something you cooked in and bad really meant bad, not good?

It’s strange how some words pass in and out of common usage. David Blankenhorn, the head of an organization that studies cultural values, points out that the compliment “good family man” is one of the phrases that has gone into obscurity. It was once widely used in our culture to designate a true badge of honor. The rough translation would be: someone who puts his family first.

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Look at the three words that make up that phrase. Good refers to widely accepted moral values. Family points to purposes larger than the self. And man says there’s a norm of masculinity. It seems that contemporary culture no longer celebrates a widely shared ideal of such a man who puts his family first.

Where do we see responsible masculinity represented on television? Bill Cosby modeled it for a few years, but who else has been portrayed in the media as a good family man? There just aren’t many. No, we’re more likely to hear about superstar athletes or the ladies’ man or the entrepreneur who’s sacrificed all, including his wife and children, to make his start-up company a success.

Fortunately, it’s not too late to bring this simple phrase back into vogue. “A good family man.” It is indeed one of the highest callings to which a man can aspire.

Fathers and the Empty Nest

When we hear the phrase “empty nest” we often think of mothers who are going through pain and depression as their children move away. But research shows that fathers feel the pain as well—in many cases even more intensely than their wives.

The movie Father of the Bride is hilarious. But it’s also a touching tribute to the love of a father for his daughter. When George, the dad, sits across from his daughter at the dinner table and learns that she’s engaged, he takes the news hard. He can’t believe what he’s hearing. He has to clear his vision as he sees her as a little baby girl, and then as the tomboy of eight or ten years, and finally as a beautiful young woman of eighteen. His little girl has grown up, and she’s leaving him. He will never again be main man in the life of this baby or this little girl or this beautiful young adult. A part of his life is over, and there’s grieving to be done.

George’s experience is not so unusual. A recent study asked 400 parents of college freshmen to report their feelings when their son or daughter left home. Surprisingly to some, the fathers book it harder than the mothers. And one of the chief explanations was regret. Fathers had been so busy—working so hard—that they suddenly realized it was too late to build a relationship with the then-grown child.

If you still have teenagers at home, take a moment regularly to enjoy your remaining time together. Those days will be gone in the blink of an eye.

Tim and Christine Burke

Would you be willing to give up your career, your aspirations, and a $600,000 annual salary if your family was in need? I know a man who did.

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In 1985 Tim Burke saw his boyhood dream come true the day he was signed to pitch for the Montreal Expos. After four years in the minors, he was finally given a chance to play in the big leagues. And he quickly proved to be worth his salt—setting a record for the most relief appearances by a rookie player.

Along the way, however, Tim and his wife, Christine, adopted four children with very special needs—two daughters from South Korea, a handicapped son from Guatemala, and another son from Vietnam. All of the children were born with very serious illnesses or defects. Neither Tim nor Christine was prepared for the tremendous demands such a family would bring. And with the grueling schedule of Major-League baseball, Tim was seldom around to help. So in 1993, only three months after signing a $600,000 contract with the Cincinnati Reds, he decided to retire. When pressed by reporters to explain this unbelievable decision, he simply said, “Baseball is going to do just fine without me. But I’m the only father my children have.”

Heroes are in short supply these days. Tim and Christine Burke are two of them.

A Great Father

Someone has said, “Link a boy to the right man, and he will seldom go wrong.” That adage is even truer when the “right man” happens to be his dad.

The influence of a good father is incalculable, reverberating for generations and shaping the character of his children. I was blessed to have had that kind of dad. He was a wonderful man—not because of his accomplishments or successes. He was great because of the way he lived his life, his devotion to Jesus Christ, and the love he expressed for his family.

My father has been gone since 1977, and I miss him still. I’ll never forget the telephone call I received from a minister saying that my dad had suffered a massive heart attack and wasn’t expected to live through the night. As I flew to Kansas City, I thought about the memorable times we spent together and the very happiest moments of my childhood.

We would get up very early on a wintry morning, put on our hunting clothes, and head twenty miles out of town to our favorite place. We’d climb over the fence and follow a little creek for several miles leading to an area that I called “the big woods”—because the trees looked so huge to me. Dad would get me situated under a fallen tree that made a secret room, and then we’d wait for the sun to rise. The entire panorama of nature would unfold out there in the woods as the squirrels, chipmunks, and birds awakened before us. Those moments together with my dad were priceless to me. Conversations occurred out there that didn’t happen anywhere else. How could I have gotten very angry at a dad who took the time to be with me? The interactions we

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shared in that setting made me want to be like that man—to adopt his values as my values, his dreams as my dreams, and his God as my God. His pervasive influence continues in my life today.

That’s the power of a man to set a kid on the right road. I can think of no wiser investment in the entire realm of human experience.

Of Elephants and Teenagers

Other than dogs, which I have always loved, the animals that fascinate me most are elephants. These magnificent creatures are highly intelligent and have very complex emotional natures. I suppose that’s what makes it disturbing when we see them suffering the encroachment of civilization.

That is happening in the Pilanesberg National Park in Northwestern South Africa. Rangers there have reported that young bull elephants in that region have become increasingly violent in recent years—especially to nearby white rhinos. Without provocation, they knock them over and then kneel and gore them to death. This is not typical elephant behavior, and it has been very difficult to explain.

But now game wardens think they’ve cracked the code. Apparently, the aggressiveness is a by-product of government programs to reduce elephant populations by killing the older animals. Almost all of the young rogues were orphaned when they were calves, depriving them of adult contact. Under normal circumstances, dominant older males keep the young bulls in line and serve as role models for them. In the absence of that influence, juvenile delinquents grow up to terrorize their neighbors.

Now, I know it’s risky to apply animal behavior too liberally to human begins, but the parallel here is too striking to miss. 30 percent of all American children were born out of wedlock, and in the African-American community, the number is above 70 percent. Most of these kids grow up without masculine role models and discipline. The result is often catastrophic—for teenagers and for elephants.

MacArthur

The year was 1962, and General Douglas MacArthur was by then an old and feeble man. He had been one of the greatest military heroes of all time, leading our armies in World Wars I and II and in Korea. By then his better days were behind.

MacArthur had returned that day to his beloved West Point, where he had been a cadet some sixty years before. He had come that day to say good-bye. His speech on the Plain that day was one of the most powerful ever given. It was entitled “Duty,

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Honor, Country” and ended with these words:

The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. My days of old have vanished—tone and tints. They have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were. Their memory is of wondrous beauty, watered by tears and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. I listen, then, but with thirsty ear, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing Reveille, of far drums beating the long roll.

In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange mournful mutter of the battlefield. But in the evening of my memory, I come back to West Point. Always there echoes and re-echoes, “Duty, Honor, Country.” Today marks my final roll call with you, but I want you to know that when I cross the river, my last conscious thoughts will be of the Corps, and the Corps, and the Corps. I bid you farewell.

General Douglas MacArthur died less than two years later on April 5, 1964. It seems fitting that we who enjoy the sweet benefits of freedom pause to thank the general and millions of others in uniform who died in the defense of liberty. We owe them an enormous debt. They lived by a code of “Duty, Honor, Country”!

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