One, this is one of the only roles you have in life where you are genuinely irreplaceable.
Let that notion sink in for a second. In almost every other thing you do, in almost every other role you seek or desire, you are ultimately irrelevant. You wife can find another husband, your employer can find another worker, your company can find another owner, your teacher can find another student, your student can find another teacher… whatever you are to whomever it is, there will always be a substitute, and maybe even a better one. But as a father, you’re it. Your children will never have another father. Oh, they can, by adoption, have a person who legally plays the role, and whom they can love in every bit the same as their biological dad, but ultimately only your genetic make-up, only your heritage helps to form the blood and bones, the sinews and structure, that are the vehicle in which their spirits have to work out their lives. You are intimately and for all time tied to them in ways you simply cannot undo. So, you might as well make that connection meaningful.
Which leads to number two: Take the job seriously.
President David O. McKay said, “no other success can compensate for failure in the home.” No matter what else you do in life, whether you are the most skilled at your trade, a magnate in business, a professor with honorary degrees, the principal player in a Broadway show, or the prime minister of Canada, no. other. success. can compensate. for failure in the home. To the boys and young men listening, if you listen to nothing else, listen to this: The best thing you can do for your own future, is to learn this lesson by anything other than experience. Learn from the older men around you, and I expect that every one of them will confirm that this principle is true. No matter what else you do, your home, your family, your eternal companion and, especially, your role as a father, are the most important things you will ever do, and nothing else will have as significant an impact on your happiness, or your sorrow, as the time, energy and effort you give at being your best within and for your family and home.
Three, treat each child differently.
Be equal and fair, of course, but remember that each of them is an entirely different person than the other, with different abilities, character, feelings and needs. You can’t treat them all the same. You can’t discipline them in the same way. You can’t speak with them, or to them, each just the same. You can, of course, love them equally. You can give them your whole heart, each – the whole of your heart to each of them – but if you are unaware of the differences that make them tick, you will probably get them wound up wrong, and might even break the mechanisms that give them their special and unique character.
Speaking of discipline, no, I’m not going to tell you anything about how to discipline your children. In nearly 30 years of fatherhood and a few as a grandfather, I haven’t figured out the magic key for what makes discipline right in every case, but I will share a thought that a friend of mine shared with me, that, when being a father, one of your roles is to make disciples. In fact, isn’t this what being a disciplinarian really means? Make disciples in the way the Lord Jesus Christ made disciples in his lifetime and ministry. He gathered around him children of God to whom he gave his special attention. He knew their names. He knew their histories. He knew their individual characters and needs. He taught. He loved them. He corrected them with kindness, generosity and love. He shared with them his greatest secrets. He let them in on the secret of who he really was. He tested them and he blessed them with gifts. He gave them his power to exercise, to practice, and to learn so that when he was no longer with them, his influence, his words, his character and training, would help them to continue and grow into even greater people. Love and teach your children as Jesus did his disciples, and you might come close to being the kind of perfect Father that he is.
Four, be a whole person.
Get to know yourself. Be aware of your weaknesses, and your strengths. Offer your strengths to your children; and be honest about your weaknesses. Repent of them; seek the Lord’s help, and he promises that weakness will become strength.
Five connects with four: Avoid sin.
Sin will cut holes in your character, and in your spirit, that will rob your family of the spiritual gifts you would otherwise have to offer. It will bring darkness into the lightest corners of your home and negate many of the good things you seek to do. Avoid sin. Correct sinful behaviour. And remember, dads, you are also, usually, husbands, and your wife, your loving companion and eternal partner, is also there to help you. Let her help you be the man, the father, that she always hoped you would, and, despite every appearance of reality, still knows you can be.
Six, and this is the last of the principles I will share from my observations and experience: Understand that you are not, were not, and never will be, ready for this obligation, or this honour.
So, a couple more points in closing.
First, I know this talk seems exclusive rather than inclusive. Some men aren’t biological fathers, and are either past the age, or in other circumstances, where that experience might never come to them. No worries. You can still be fathers in every other sense of the word. I have had many fathers who were not my biological father.
In fact, my mother was a single mother, and though we knew my dad, we loved him, and had a good relationship with him, he was not, in fact, an effective father in many of the ways I have described above, and I bear the effects of that failure. I know that in regard to many of my weaknesses in character and conduct, I would have been helped and improved by having a more effective father in my early life.
But then, just a little while before my 18th birthday, I joined the Church, and for the first time I got to really observe and get to know men for whom family and fatherhood were centrally important factors in their lives. Men who didn’t rely on alcohol to undo a day’s stress. Men who sacrificed for their marriages and consistently strived to do right by their children. Men who honoured principles and concepts such as duty and service. These men were fathers to me. And men like them continue to be. Some of them are listening to this talk, and I am grateful for and will forever honour the place and influence they have had in my life.
Men, you are often as fathers to the men and women around you.
Second, I want to remind us of the many examples of righteous fatherhood that the scriptures* offer, but one, in particular, I want to talk about. I’ll tell you that for me Abraham and Alma have been the most common examples that I have turned to. Since becoming a father of adult children, I also have a special affinity for Lehi; and I will always honour Adam’s integrity in turning to righteousness after facing his first personal failures. But I believe that primary amongst the fathers shown to us in scriptures in one to whom no great words of wisdom are attributed. Few are the miraculous events in his life, and none of them involve a demonstration, on his part, of profound priesthood power. In fact, he was not a priest and not a prophet. He led no wars. He was not in government. He was the most common of all the honoured fathers in scripture, but there was no father more important than him in history. And, speaking of inclusiveness, he was an adopted dad. I am, of course, referring to Joseph, the father, in this world, of Jesus Christ.
The image we most commonly have of Joseph in Christian tradition, is of the kindly man standing watch over Mary and the baby in the manger. He often leans on his staff and holds a lamp. This is Joseph, and this might be one of the best emblems of fatherhood we have. Stalwart. Faithful. A guardian. A light giver. Willing to listen to, and obey, the promptings of the Spirit. Willing to love and trust in his wife. Willing to raise and instruct Jesus as his own son, knowing that his mission in life was not to be a reflection of Joseph’s. Jesus would not carry on the family name or the family business. Joseph knew and honoured the sacred, individual and unique mission his son would have. He knew that his son was God’s son; and isn’t that ultimately true of all our children?
You won’t find great doctrinal speeches delivered by Joseph. His life – barely spoken of in the scriptures, yet so evident by what he produced – his life is his testimony and his treatise. If we could but be as silently faithful as Joseph, and, like him, stand by our wives and love, honour and treat our children as the gifts from God that they are, we’d do okay.
And, with that, Happy Father’s Day. And, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.