Mens Roles: The Responsibilities We Have as Fathers in the Development of Our Sons.
By Troy L Parrish, MA LCPC
What roles do us as fathers play in the development of our sons? In what way do we contribute significantly to their development as boys, as teens, as young men? Is there any difference in terms of what we as dads contribute to our sons than what they get from their mothers. Certainly, we as dads have a unique role to play in the lives of our sons so that when they are grown they are comfortable with whom they are as men; they are comfortable with their masculinity.
There has been growing discussion in our culture concerning what it means to be a man and what it means to be masculine. With the advent of women's liberation and the changes in the roles that each gender plays, there remains a fair amount of confusion as to the role men are to play in relationships and in society. What we as fathers do for our sons is to help to define for our sons what it is to be a man, what it is to be masculine. We model for him this manhood and we welcome him into the fraternity of men by virtue of our relationship with our sons. I believe that fathers have four critical roles to play in the lives of their sons. These are roles that no female can transmit to our sons, if we do not give our sons these lessons either some other man will have to or our sons will not receive these lessons at all.
The first role that we have is showing him how to be a man. Of course there is the obvious of being responsible, working hard to support the family, taking care of the man jobs around the home. But showing our sons what a man is goes beyond these more obvious roles into the role of teaching our sons lessons like integrity, honesty, honor, consistency, having a giving heart and more. In other words we demonstrate for our sons what the character of a man should look like by virtue of how we conduct ourselves. We demonstrate to them honesty in how we deal with our taxes, the clerk at the store, admitting when we make a mistake or even confessing a lie. We demonstrate integrity when we refuse to compromise our values and that we keep our word. But more than the character is the issues of how to be a man in the ways that make boys and men unique from girls and women. How to conquer our fears, how to be chivalrous, how to enjoy and adventure, the art of taking a risk and how to deal with emotions as a man is a significant part of growing our sons into men who can embrace their God given masculinity. This last element, helping shape the elements that make men unique as men is a task that no women can accomplish in the life of her son. She can help to shape his character, but she cannot model the masculine form of those qualities nor can she model a way to celebrate the unique qualities that will make her son a man.
The second role that we have as fathers is to provide a strong sense of love that comes from a strong man. The view our sons have of us as dads when they are young is that we can fix anything, that we are strong beyond belief and that we know all there is to know in the world. We are, in his eyes, superman. To know that this superman loves his son communicates to this boy that he is accepted in the world of men; giving him confidence as he deals with his male peers, helps him to feel that he belongs with other men and allows him to compete in the world around other men. He will not suffer the self-doubt and the feeling that he is a boy among men. We need to wrestle with our boys, we need to read with them, we need to make discoveries with them; we need to teach our boys to compete, how to win and how to lose. We need to tell our sons that we love them and we need to show them affection even with touch. This is imperative if our sons are to have the confidence in terms of their place in the world of men. A mother cannot provide the love of a father. She can provide the love of a mother in abundance but she cannot provide the love that is to come from dad, no woman can. It is up to us as fathers to provide that sense of love and acceptance from a man that he looks up to and respects.
The third role that we play is in showing them how to be a father. He is learning as he watches. He does not know that he is watching and learning and sometimes you do not know that he is watching and learning either. But we do know deep down inside that our sons are learning what it means to be a dad by watching us. We learned from our fathers, sometimes a lot, sometimes what we knew we didn't want to be and sometimes there was a void that neither dad nor we as sons knew existed. We discovered some of these lessons early in our childhood, others we discovered as we dealt with our own children. We also show our boys how to be husbands and participants in a family. We model for them how to treat women and children, how to honor their wives, how to love their children and how to sacrifice for the family. We show them how to enjoy the family God has given them and how to be strong as the man in the home. These are lessons that mom cannot impart. She has her own lesson to demonstrate, but these lessons she cannot teach. We have a privileged responsibility to pass these lessons on to our sons.
The fourth lesson is that we show our sons how to be a spiritual man. We show our sons how to love God and live in accordance with His word and principles. We teach our boys how to fill the roles of leadership that God call men to with the appropriate level of humility and love for those we serve. We teach them to pray, to honor those around us above ourselves, how to be a servant leader in the home, how to guide his children and how to protect the family through his own prayer and sacrifice. These roles are unique to us as fathers and cannot be abdicated to our wives or the mother of our children. If we abdicate them, our wives cannot fill these responsibilities, they will go unfilled to the detriment of our sons. We as men have a tremendous role to play in terms of the development of our sons. We should rejoice in that role and know that we indeed are not dispensable.