The Role of the Father.
We have attempted to place the responsibility of children's upbringing squarely on respective parents. We have seen that parenting is a very serious business and that it requires certain maturity levels to qualify as a parent judging from the point of view of divinity as man is known to be a divine creature.
We now have to go into concepts and ideas about the art of parenting. Parenting is largely a form of life long mentoring of offspring with the view of imparting acceptable character traits and behaviors into children. The chief person with the gravest responsibility in this case is the man of the house. As the head of the family, he is looked up to by the creator and the procreation for provision for and direction in all ramifications. Having been mature enough to marry, and studied to gain knowledge, he then understands how to influence the child from birth for positive character traits and how to exert the necessary disciplinary measures on the child for correction of tendencies for natural bent. By natural bent we mean the impulse to do it the wrong way until we are restrained either positively or negatively as the case may be, depending on the maturity level of the correcting influence.
What are the roles of the father in the house? When it comes to the parenting of a child, society has this erroneous notion that the child's mother is mostly responsible for the molding of the child's character. The natural attachment of the children to their mothers from conception to birth tends to put the weight of responsibility on the mother. But the creator has it differently and researchers and family life educators of wide experience know that the creator made it that different - it is actually on the father of the child that the responsibility of character molding falls. The mother, despite the close natural attachment, has only a complementary role to play. This is why we talked about maturity of the parents-to-be before marriage.
The father's influence on the new born, especially within the first three to five years of growth, derives first from the kind of relationship he has with the child's mother, his wife. Why? The creator proclaimed that the man needed a companion in other to be fruitful and increase in number. Offspring of creatures were made to be of their particular kinds. For man, then, there was a needed union with his wife which rises above just mating like the rest of creatures. When we read, "That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh" (Genesis chapter two, verse twenty-four), we are amazed at the wonders of creation. The union of the man and his wife in this way is made possible by conjugal love which the first man, Adam, expressed at the sight of the first woman, Eve, when the creator brought her to him, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh". This conjugal love that binds the man and his wife as one flesh has tremendous influence on the child of the union with respect to the man. Note that the man had been in charge even before the woman was formed and the woman was actually formed from the man. You can now understand why the child reveres his father under normal circumstances.
From the foregoing, it is understandable that the influence of the father on the child would be determined to a very large extent by the depth of the conjugal love between the man and his wife. Once they are truly "one flesh", the child will be the better for it and vice versa.
Hence, he must ensure the availability of this conjugal love for his wife and thus guarantee their oneness as husband and wife as this forms the foundation of his influence on the child of the union. We have given these details to explain why no man has any excuse not to "start their children off in the way they should go". The foremost way being the way of divine love. Hear it, a loving family is the foundation of proper character molding for the child. A child naturally has crises of character formation if he finds himself in an unloving parental relationship
When God said ‘it is not good for the man to be alone’ (Genesis chapter two, verse eighteen), he definitely did not restrict loneliness to the absence of a wife for the man. God expressed his inclusion of children first of all to the command for them to go into the world and multiply and fill the earth. Then in his remarks concerning Abraham God expressed confidence in Abraham to ‘direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him’ (Genesis chapter eighteen, verses eighteen and nineteen).
The man should be mature enough to love the woman God has given him for this is the foundation of the proper training of the children that will result from the relationship he has with his wife. Children that result from a loving relationship between a man and his wife have a secure foundation and will be very easy to submit to proper training. On the other hand a man that loves his wife will naturally transfer same love to his children. It is important to note that children respond to love more than any other form of pressure to obey their parents. With love in place, it is mainly the role of the father to nurture the child for proper development, especially discipline. God ordained the man to be the head of the household hence the provision of most of the needs of the child rests on the man, namely, material, psychological, emotional, spiritual, and social needs. Maturity guarantees that the man has a secure means of livelihood so that he can provide the basic material needs of the child ranging from food to clothing and shelter. The man should also be mature enough to protect the child from external aggression.
The man still has a psychological role to play contrary to the notion in society that the woman should play this major role. This confusion is as a result of the already existing attachment of the child to the mother owing to conception, birth and basic care thereafter. Love has already been established as a foundation for the child’s upbringing hence the man has the mandate to display positive psychological traits for the child to emulate. From birth, the man should be around to carry the baby, spend time with the child, and engage in activities that will suggest a positive and loving environment to the child.
Positive emotions should be frequently displayed by the man for the child to emulate. Negative emotions should be reserved for disapproval signals to the child to guide the child’s behavioral development. Smiling, laughing, brightening the countenance, merriment, cheerfulness, happiness and joy should be abundant around the child from the man of the house. A child should be made to feel accepted as he is and this acceptance should be reinforced regularly especially when the child attempts to achieve any positive thing no matter how insignificant.
Unfortunately, many men cannot display these wonderful ingredients of good living and hence cannot influence their children to follow suit.
The man should engage in spiritual activities with the child right from time. Singing, praying, reading the Bible aloud to the child’s hearing no matter the age, attendance to spiritual activities, display of spiritual virtues and talking about God to the child should not be delayed by the man of the house. The discipline of the child cannot be achieved without a proper spiritual development and the child’s discipline rests squarely on the man. The man is also the priest of the family as well as spiritual head.
Disciplinary measures should be administered to the child from the day of birth! This is important as researchers have told us that by the third to fifth year of life the child has already formed more than fifty percent of his character and personality traits! Hence, anything being done to the child after then would amount to bending the child and no longer forming his character. This you may agree is in direct contrast with contemporary notion about child development and proper upbringing and constitutes one of such issues for doubt and argument aforementioned in the earlier chapter.
The man should engage in social activities with the child right from home. Spiritual outings equally constitute social avenues for the child’s welfare. School age begins after year three for the proper social and intellectual development of the child. The child should be provided kindergarten experience at this proper age of three and above and not before, according to informed researchers.
With the foregoing it is not surprising that we have behavioral problems on the increase in the society with the increasing absence of the father’s role in the house as a result of the busyness of many-a-man, and also ignorance of these facts discussed here.
