Father's Day

Father’s Day.

I lost my Dad just 7 months ago. I’m never ready for when the wave of grief sweeps over me. When I hear the word “papa” which is what his grandsons called him, it gets me. I was walking out with a patient as he was being wheeled to an ambulance and instantly I was back walking out with my Dad’s body to the hearse. Gosh, I miss him.

My sister made a collage of pictures of us with him. Memories I am so thankful for. Pictures I can glance at and immediately be transported back to the event that the picture was taken. Good stuff.

Dad’s you are so important to your kids, your grandkids, how you treat your wife and your daughters, essential. I was listening to the Christian radio station and Mark Hall with Casting Crowns was being interviewed. He said he and his son are walking through the book of John, “For John the Baptist to know what his purpose was, just to point to Jesus, amazing.” He said he tries to catch his son doing the right thing. “Hey man, you looked that elder in the eye and shook his hand, just like I taught you, that was awesome.” He said he tries not to add a “but” as much as he used to, “That was great but you need to….”

There is nothing more important than a Godly man in the life of a child. I talked to a woman in her 60’s the other day. Her life is miserable. She is sad and bitter and feels she is worthless. When I asked her what she could be thankful for, she said, “That I didn’t kill myself because then he would of won.”

The “he” was the man who was supposed to be a father to her. He berated and ignored and mocked and abused her. She has never met Jesus and she is full of hate and confusion. “Why? Why? I can’t stop the pain, I can’t throw the memories away.” 

Dad. The words you speak to your children will reverberate in their ears for years to come. Good or bad your impact will have a lifelong effect in the lives of your children. How you treat them; remember you will see that behavior again when they get old enough to model it. You will ask them, “Where’d you learn that?” They will answer, “You.” So choose your path carefully…they are watching and learning and emulating everything you do and say.

Doubting the importance of a Dad in the home???

Incarceration Rates. "Young men who grow up in homes without fathers are twice as likely to end up in jail as those who come from traditional two-parent families...those boys whose fathers were absent from the household had double the odds of being incarcerated -- even when other factors such as race, income, parent education and urban residence were held constant." (Cynthia Harper of the University of Pennsylvania and Sara S. McLanahan of Princeton University cited in "Father Absence and Youth Incarceration." Journal of Research on Adolescence 14 (September 2004): 369-397.)

Suicide. 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (Source: What Can the Federal Government Do To Decrease Crime and Revitalize Communities? )

Behavioral Disorders.  85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes (Source: What Can the Federal Government Do To Decrease Crime and Revitalize Communities? - see link below)

High School Drop Outs. 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes (Source: What Can the Federal Government Do To Decrease Crime and Revitalize Communities? - see link below)

Educational Attainment. Kids living in single-parent homes or in step-families report lower educational expectations on the part of their parents, less parental monitoring of school work, and less overall social supervision than children from intact families. (N.M. Astore and S. McLanahan, American Sociological Review, No. 56 (1991)

Juvenile Detention Rates. 70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes (Source: What Can the Federal Government Do To Decrease Crime and Revitalize Communities? - see link below)

Confused Identities. Boys who grow up in father-absent homes are more likely that those in father-present homes to have trouble establishing appropriate sex roles and gender identity.(P.L. Adams, J.R. Milner, and N.A. Schrepf, Fatherless Children, New York, Wiley Press, 1984).

Aggression. In a longitudinal study of 1,197 fourth-grade students, researchers observed "greater levels of aggression in boys from mother-only households than from boys in mother-father households." (N. Vaden-Kierman, N. Ialongo, J. Pearson, and S. Kellam, "Household Family Structure and Children's Aggressive Behavior: A Longitudinal Study of Urban Elementary School Children," Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 23, no. 5 (1995).

Achievement. Children from low-income, two-parent families outperform students from high-income, single-parent homes. Almost twice as many high achievers come from two-parent homes as one-parent homes. (One-Parent Families and Their Children, Charles F. Kettering Foundation, 1990).

Delinquency. Only 13 percent of juvenile delinquents come from families in which the biological mother and father are married to each other. By contrast, 33 percent have parents who are either divorced or separated and 44 percent have parents who were never married. (Wisconsin Dept. of Health and Social Services, April 1994).

Criminal Activity. The likelihood that a young male will engage in criminal activity doubles if he is raised without a father and triples if he lives in a neighborhood with a high concentration of single-parent families. Source: A. Anne Hill, June O'Neill, Underclass Behaviors in the United States, CUNY, Baruch College. 1993

Drug Use.  A study from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services concluded that fatherless children are at a dramatically greater risk of drug and alcohol abuse.  Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. National Center for Health Statistics. Survey on Child Health. Washington, DC, 1993

Online sources for the above data:

What Can the Federal Government Do To Decrease Crime and Revitalize Communities? from the National Institute of Justice, 1998, page 11

Cynthia Harper of the University of Pennsylvania and Sara S. McLanahan of Princeton University cited in "Father Absence and Youth Incarceration." Journal of Research on Adolescence 14 (September 2004): 369-397.

The Kingdom grew by two today! A Mom and a Dad said yes to Jesus!! They have two children. The focus of their household has forever changed. As they get to know Jesus more and more, their example as Godly parents will have a lifelong impact on their kids. But, the coolest thing is that they now know the forever love of Jesus Christ. The kind of Love that can change the world, one kidlet at a time!!

Know that you are prayed for.

In His service,

deni