The challenge of being a hero

In today’s society the importance of having a father in the home is often down played.  

Regardless of the countless efforts by media and others to portray as unnecessary the need for having both parents in the home, the reality of numerous studies conducted since 2005 shows a great disparity between children raised in intact two-parent homes and those raised in single-parent or cohabiting situations.  

Statistically less than 60 percent of all children in the U.S. live in a home with their biological father.  Study after study shows that children living without their father in the home are two to three times more likely to experience serious negative outcomes than children raised in a stable two-parent home with both mother and father.  

A young girl whose father leaves the house before she turns age six is 35 percent more likely to become pregnant before the age of 18 than one whose father stays in the home. Young men raised in a single-parent home are 11 percent more likely to become incarcerated than those raised in a two-parent home.  

And this isn’t all. These same studies document a 17 percent higher dropout rate among young people whose fathers are absent.  The dropout number increases by 60 percent for those in cohabiting households even versus single-parent abodes while the incidence of marijuana and other drug use is 116 percent higher.

What we learn from these surveys is that the presence of the father brings strength, stability and value to the family.  Without his presence each of these is lacking and the children are left to continue suffering the consequences well into their own adult years.

These same studies document the economic impact of the absent fathers as well.  Married men earn 18 percent more than those who do not commit to marriage but choose to cohabitate or live the single life, and the median net worth of married households was 93 percent higher than non-married.

To further compound the effect of absent fathers is the occasion of various forms of abuse and neglect visited upon children. Comparing the intact home where both biological mother and father reside with their children to homes involving stepparents and single parents cohabiting with a partner to whom they are not married, the effects of the absent father is magnified even more.  

For instance, in an intact home the incidence of physical abuse is 1.9 percent, compared to 9.8 percent in a stepparent home and 19.5 percent if the single parent is cohabiting.  The numbers for sexual abuse are equally alarming with .05 percent in intact homes, 4.3 percent in homes with stepparents and 9.9 percent in cohabiting homes.  

If we are to reverse the damage and woundedness caused by the absence of the father due to unwed pregnancies, incarcerations, divorces and cohabitation, we must recognize that these children need their fathers to be actively engaged in their lives.  We must be willing to step up as men and assume the role, which belongs to the father.  

What is that role and what are its challenges?

Perhaps what is most important is realizing that proclaiming oneself as a father is simply not enough; rather, one must be willing to be a father.  Being implies action, and being a father implies that we take action to turn the hopes and dreams we hold for our children into reality.  Further, having been created in the image and likeness of God we are called to be like Him in certain ways.  

God loves us and wants only the very best for us.  To this end He exhorts us to strive for the very highest ideals, seeking only to love.  When He sees us go astray He continues to love us, forgiving and encouraging us to reach for something better.  That is the task every father has.  

Being fatherly does not mean controlling the children in your charge.  It does mean caring for them and being responsible for them.  Before we can be responsible for others we must first have personal responsibility, being accountable for our own words and actions.  This seems to go against the present cultural current which tells us that we can do whatever we desire because we can.  Personal responsibility calls for us to do what it right and just, not what is expedient or convenient for our own personal desires.  This alone is not easy, but it is also not the only thing required of fathers.

Fathers have a great responsibility as primary educators for their children.  They should teach them the difference between right and wrong.  The manner in which they respect and defend their wife, the mother of their children, teaches the children how to treat not only their mother, but others with whom they have relationships as well.  

Among all that is required of a father, his primary responsibility the one to be a Christian witness to his children.  The most immediate opportunity for evangelization and catechesis is in our own homes.  The father must bring his children to a real and personal relationship with Christ.  For this to occur, it is imperative for children to see their father pray.  We must show our children how to talk to God.  

An authentic father is a father of faith, strength, character and courage.  A father who is obedient to God and courageous to the point of sacrificing his own child, as St. Joseph did, and Abraham would have done.  An authentic father has faith that the Lord will provide for him, and more importantly, for his family.  In the words of Abraham, “God himself will provide.” (Gn 22:8)  
How do we fathers live so as to set an example of authenticity to other men?  How can we live up to the challenge?  And if we are up to the challenge, how do we go about living authentic fatherhood?

To be an authentic, Christian father means that we are not just Catholic on Sundays, but it is who we are every moment of our lives.  We are children of God, created in His likeness, to bring glory to Him.  To be a father in the likeness of God is a call to authentic leadership, to action and to prayer.  

Being a Christian father means revealing and reliving in the world the very fatherhood of God.  It requires us to be no less than a hero.