Daly Focus Blog
Is it up to fate whether or not men become a good father?
My dad was a poor role model. He was an alcoholic and in his drunken stupors he would threaten my mother and scare me to death. He walked out on our family when I was five then floated in and out of my life for years. He was never a positive influence and didn’t model for me what good fathering looked like. Mostly, he broke his promises and disappointed me again and again.
Did you get married to do laundry? To pay bills? To cook dinner or wash the dishes? No one does.
And yet, for many couples, that’s all there is. Their relationship is practical and business-like. At some point the joy of the wedding ceremony gave way to the daily grind of routine activity. Careers were chased, children were born, and ever-larger homes with new cars in the garage were purchased.
And, slowly, the romance faded. What used to be hours on the phone together became business meetings about practical matters, like finances or the kids’ grades.
When we talk to people who believe differently than us, do we think before we speak? Author and internationally known public speaker Dr. Emerson Eggerichs is joining me on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly to share practical ideas for speaking the truth in love.
Being nice is easy. It’s how we act toward someone with whom we share common ground. Kindness requires something deeper. Kindness engages in civil dialogue with others even though they hold different religious beliefs, social values, or political viewpoints.
Few things are as painful for Christian parents as a child who turns away from his or her faith. Often mixed with that sadness is the parents’ guilt. In their minds, they’ve failed in their efforts to lead their child to Christ.
But effective parenting isn’t black and white. We can’t be perfect parents any more than we can be perfect human beings. We all fail. In addition, as children grow older, they become more independent and make their own choices.
It’s no fun breaking your ankle. I can tell you that from experience. It happened to me a few years back when I tumbled off my motorcycle on a winding mountain road. The result was surgery and weeks in a recliner with my ankle elevated. One thing I learned was that the connection between physical brokenness and pain is obvious.
Emotional brokenness, on the other hand, is often a different story. It’s much harder to connect symptoms to their cause, making the pain easy to mistake for other issues.
Maddie and her 13-year-old son, Justin, heard Jim Daly while in the car together. They heard me say that junior high kids want their parents to listen to them. Right there in the parking lot, Justin said, “He’s right, Mom. I’d love it if you’d just listen to me sometimes.”
Good listening is a skill. Teenagers don’t open up very often, so when they do, take advantage. When my son, Trent, was younger, he got chatty at night.
Children aren’t equipped with the emotional resources they need to keep their world steady. In fact, according to research:
Nearly one in three adolescents meets the criteria for an anxiety disorder by age 18.
One in six children (ages six to 17) are diagnosed with a mental illness.
The number of teenagers who experience depression has increased by 59% over the past 10 years.
My guest on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, author Eliza Huie, says recent studies are revealing that bullying, social media, exposure to traumatizing news and images and the effects of living through the global pandemic of 2020 are having a severe emotional impact on children’s mental health.
Entitlement is a lie. It deceives us into believing that we deserve reward without effort. The trouble is, we’re not given a good life. We earn it through commitment, dedication and sacrifice.
That profound truth was beautifully captured in the movie Saving Private Ryan. Tom Hanks’ character, Captain John Miller, leads a group of men on an extraordinary mission behind enemy lines: find Private James Ryan, whose three brothers have died in combat. The men succeed in their mission but at a steep cost.
My two boys are grown and live on their own, but fatherhood is probably still a few years off, which means grandparenting for Jean and me is also a few years off. We’re looking forward to it.
In the meantime, I’m thinking about the kind of grandfather I hope to be and how God might want to use me as a loving and positive influence in my grandkids’ lives. I have some questions. And I bet you do, too.
When you’re driving and approach an intersection, a traffic light communicates how to proceed:
A green light means move forward.
A yellow light means slow down and prepare to stop or move forward with caution.
A red light means stop immediately.
Author and marriage and family pastor, Scott Kedersha, advises dating couples to approach marriage the same way. Through the wisdom of friends, family, or a pastor or counselor, you can discern whether it’s safe to move forward, whether you ought to slow down and reconsider aspects of your relationship, or whether you ought to stop altogether instead of proceeding into an unhealthy marriage.
Jim Daly is a husband, father and President of Focus on the Family and host of its National Radio Hall of Fame broadcast. His blog, Daly Focus, is full of timely commentary and wisdom designed to help you navigate and understand today’s culture. His latest book is Marriage Done Right.
