As a father, I know my children are always watching me. Often, this results in mortifying instances when they mimic something I regularly say or do and I realize that I really, really need to do better. They pour self-knowledge over my head like a bucket of ice water. These children of mine, whom I love more than anything in the world, have against all my most fervent wishes picked up my bad habits.
Looking in the living mirror that is my progeny has, more than anything ever before, motivated me to become a better man.
What makes a father good?
I want to be a good father. I want to impart good gifts to my children and not become a model of imperfections who unwittingly bestows all my worst traits. These days, I’m a little more careful how I speak, what television I watch, how I vocally react to frustration, and how I use my time.
Being a good father isn’t as easy as simply commanding goodness out of my children. No, I have to put my heart into it. I have to actually strive to be a good person, to love God, and exemplify humility for them. That’s how they learn. For better or worse, these kids are going to act like me (I’d prefer they act significantly more like their mother, who is much kinder and more thoughtful). Because of this, since I’ve become a father I’ve done a lot of thinking about who I am.
Above all, I want the kids to know that I love them. This is by far the best gift I can impart. I’ll never be a perfect man, but the children can always know that, know matter what, they are loved. And I don’t want them to only intellectually think that they are loved, or hear me say it from time to time, I want to them to feel it right down the center of their soul, to the marrow of their bones.
There’s a deeper kind of knowledge we all participate in, a knowledge that arises from somewhere transcendent and mysterious, that unfolds and shares of itself. We can know something is true, and we can also know it. I want my children to know about my love but also to directly share in it, to really truly participate in it.
An interesting observation
Recently, I discovered a surprising way I’ve been loving my kids this whole time without even realizing it. This deeper sort of love wasn’t something to which I’d given any thought, but I’ve come to understand that, whether I knew it or not, they are coming to know about love when they see me loving their mother.
Often, when I leave in the morning for work and arrive home in the evening, I’ll give my wife a hug or a kiss. Sometimes, when she’s standing in the kitchen waiting for a pot of noodles to boil so she can finish making dinner, I know she needs a pick-me-up (because making dinner is her least favorite activity ever), so I’ll hug her and we’ll talk. Ever since we’ve had children in the house, whenever I hug their mother, at least one child joins the hug. The boys tend not to be so interested in the physical affection -- they have their own version of this phenomenon, though; when I roughhouse with one of them the others become interested, too -- but the girls, particularly when they’ve been young, pretty much automatically join the hug.
I’d never given it much thought until recently, but that joining action is significant. It means that, when the children see their father loving their mother, they sense an unspoken invitation. They feel included in the love, even from across the room. The most natural thing in the world is to join the hug. I tried asking my young girls why they always join the hug and they don’t really know how to express it in words. It really is a participation in a reality that runs deeper than words.
Modeling love
The way I treat their mother is, of course, an example for the children. I want my daughters to see how a future husband should be expected to treat them, and for the boys to know how they should treat their future wives. Providing this example is a very simple parenting method to encourage healthy and happy relationships both in our family right now and also in the homes they will someday create. A father who is affectionate with his wife assists in creating a home that is emotionally secure and supportive.
But when I say that I love my children when I love their mother, I mean to indicate something far more than the provision of a good example. The children themselves feel loved. They feel the affection of their parents as an expression of the love shared by our whole family. When I tried to get a good quote from my 10-year-old daughter about why she always joins the hug, all I could get out of her is, “It’s better to hug two people than one.”
She interprets love broadly, almost as if it operates by a transitive property and magnifies in the transmission. It reaches out and expands. Love isn’t simply shared on a one-to-one basis. It embraces the whole family. When I hug their mother, I’m already hugging the children.
The worthy work of parenting
There are aspects of parenting that cause me mighty struggles. I fall short every day in providing the example my children deserve. All I can do is try again tomorrow to do better. This struggle is not unique, and I know a lot of parents out there who are discouraged that they aren’t perfect. What I realized the other day, though, while I was hugging my wife and two other daughters at the same time, is that love is being communicated every day in all sorts of ways we hardly notice. Getting rid of our vices and becoming better examples for our children is hard (and worthy) work.
Do you know what’s easy, though? Sharing a hug.
