A Father’s Day Commitment
Since I founded Men in Balance in 2007, I have always been amazed that when I speak to men’s groups and ask them to raise their hand if they had a great relationship with their father, so few hands go up. But when I ask if they had a troubled relationship with their father, many more hands go up.
For many of us, Father’s Day is not pleasant.
For some, Father’s Day brings up happy memories of time spent with their children, and for some it brings up painful childhood memories of their own fathers. And for yet another group of men, it brings up memories of both.
As fathers, it doesn’t bode well for us that the nationally recognized day for celebrating us comes with such a variety of mixed emotions.
Fortunately, being a father is not a one-time event…it’s not a single occurrence that, once it’s passed, it’s gone. Instead, becoming a father changes your identity for life—once you’re a father, you’re always a father.
If you find yourself dreading Father’s Day—either because of past trauma from your own father or because you feel as though you’ve failed as a father—it may be helpful to remind yourself of that one simple fact: that being a father is a lifetime journey.
Because if we treat being a father as a lifelong identity and journey, it means that Father’s Day presents several unique opportunities:
The opportunity to reconcile with your own father
The opportunity to reconnect with your grown-up children
The opportunity to examine what fatherhood really means in your relationships
The opportunity to recommit to being the father you want to be for your children
At its core, fatherhood is a fairly simple concept—it’s the commitment to raise and mentor your children in a way that produces healthy, well-adjusted adults. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Indeed, being a parent is a messy affair—it comes with its own unique mixture of joy, pain, overwhelm, confusion, and fulfillment.
But because fatherhood—with all of its messiness—is a lifelong journey, it means that no matter how satisfied you are with how you’ve shown up for your children, you always have the opportunity to become a better father.
This Father’s Day, consider how you’ve shown up as a parent for your children. Don’t fixate only on where you’ve failed, but reflect on where you’ve really excelled as a parent (trust me, there’s a bit of both in there).
And if it feels right for you, use this Father’s Day as an opportunity to reflect on what it means to you to be a good father…and commit to working towards the vision you have of what the relationship with your children could look like by the time the next Father’s Day rolls around.
