The Father in the Home
By Della T. Lutes
TRY to get the child’s point of view in daily matters, and then, when a crisis comes, and he needs your advice, counsel, judgment, if he can not reach to your judgment, he will trust you sufficiently to accept it, and act upon it, waiting until he can measure it with his own. If you antagonize him by trying to beat down his opinion with your own, you will only arouse his hostility against you; and though you may prate to him for a thousand years about the “ingratitude of a thankless child,” and quote, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth,” until you are dumb, he will turn a deaf ear to you, and you may be thankful if you turn him not against you and your teachings forever. “Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath,” is a Biblical injunction that the great majority of parents quite overlook in their zealous search for quotations to fling at the helpless heads of their offspring. You are one individual, he is another. Each has equal rights, and each is bound to maintain them to the best of his ability. In the greater number of cases the man has the best of it by virtue of superior force. You can lead your boy to heaven or you can drive him to hell by the crook of your finger; therefore it behooves one to know how to crook it, for though you pound his flesh to a jelly, you can never conquer him, and he will escape you at the earliest opportunity. Men are handicapped in winning the affection of their little ones by lack of caressing manners, easy dropping of endearing epithets, those manifold ways of attraction which the woman has always at her command. Men are more reserved by nature, and find it difficult to express themselves, even to those whom they love best. This, however, can be overcome in a father’s relations with his boys by entering into their games and sports, by talking with them about the things they are interested in, by being a boy with them. The masculine nature, even in infancy, will respond to its kind; and the father who can play marbles, spin a top, fly a kite, pitch a ball, “part his hair in the middle,” and laugh at mother for not baiting her own hook, has nothing to fear from his sons. His daughters may easily be won by little tendernesses, acts of devotion, thoughtfulness, a kiss; for even the littlest of daughters is a woman at heart. A father’s position in his family ought to be a particularly sacred one. He is to his little flock what the Heavenly Father is to the universe. His home is his universe. He builds it, provides for it, nourishes, shields, guards it—and should have a considerable hand in its government. He should be the “court of last resort,” the supreme court, the judge, counselor, adviser. He has it in his power to be a despot or an adored sovereign. If he is the right kind of father, he will lead his children to God by suggestion—in the bearing of a name in common. There will be but a step of trust between the father of the earthly home and the Father of the heavenly home. If he is a pure, abstemious, righteous man, not even the purity of women will so appeal to his sons as the strength of purity in manhood. His position in his family should be one of dignity and high calling, tempered with justice, made tender with love, holy with responsibility and selflessness. He should never, under any circumstances, be made a bug-bear to his children through a threat or a fear. He should represent to them the wisdom of the serpent combined with the tenderness of the dove. He should be regnant upon the throne of his home.—Della T. Lutes, in American Motherhood.