Fathers and Daughters: Children Aren't Ornaments

Carrie Lukas has a good piece on the importance of fathers at National Review Online.

Our society (through movies, TV shows and commercials) sends the message that fathers are just bunglers at best, who wouldn't be able to make it out the door in the morning if there wives weren't there to correct them and do everything for them. Without undermining the importance of wives and mothers, most fathers are better than the media gives them credit for.

As my daughter (just turned 9) grows, more and more I'm amazed at what she is learning from me--and at times it's very scary. It's sobering if nothing else, because while I try to be a good father to my children, sometimes I let "urgent" things crowd in and I don't try as hard as they deserve. But with God's help and continual reminders to get back to my primary duty, I think my children have a good shot at turning out alright.

Why? At the risk of sounding like we're tooting our own horns, our family takes Deuteronomy chapter 6 seriously and tries to live by it:

These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

We constantly look for opportunities--even driving to McDonald's--when we see some relevant life-lesson to bring it up and discuss it with our children (our son has just turned 4, so he doesn't get most of it, but you'd be amazed at what he does remember and put together later). I usually throw some comments about something we see as we drive around, or hear on the radio, and let my daughter ask questions and express her own thoughts and observations on things.

Children desperately need their parents to point them toward the truth and help them internalize it to the point that they develop "ownership" of that truth. They don't need some liberal idiot of a parent who's more interested in being their "friend" than they are in equipping their children to become responsible members of the next generation.

Children also don't need to be the subjects of liberal experiments to remake reality in their own permissive image. They need to know right from wrong, they need to know what the truth is and what the lies are that lurk in waiting to overtake them.

Children need a safe and stable environment, and some adults need to grow up themselves and provide it for their children. Children aren't just an accessory for the annual Christmas postcard. They are real human beings that deserve responsibility out of their parents, instead of being treated as afterthoughts falling somewhere far behind the recreational and sexual priorities of a parent who never learned to put someone else ahead of their own basest hungers.

Parenting isn't just a job--though we would all do well to remember that it is that--that we do whether we like it or not. It's a charge from God to provide for and guide and protect a young human being that God has placed in our care.

If you're a parent, God has left something very important to him in our care. If we want His favor, we would do well to remember how much he cares about children, and would be good stewards of those he has entrusted to us. I tremble for some of the mistakes I've already made, and some of the things I've already neglected to do; how much more should I be afraid if I only saw my children as ornaments at best, or even nuisances to be endured?

Parents: don't leave your children to fend for themselves. Protect them from the lies that would destroy them. Protect them from people who would use them for their own ends. And protect them from their own sinful nature. The day will come when they're grown that they'll have to choose right or wrong on their own. When that day comes, it's no longer up to you what they do. But if you've equipped them well and taught them right, even though they'll surely make some mistakes, they'll likely come out alright.

Now go and read Lukas' column if you haven't already. She makes the case for caring for our daughters (and all our children) far better than I have here.