Honoring Our Dads, Stepdads and Granddads

With Father's Day approaching this Sunday, I think it's time we all pause and reflect to honor good dads everywhere. Many times, Father's Day gets trampled on by Mother's Day, graduations, and spring birthdays. It's just not fair. Fathers and the other important good men in our lives who nurture, develop, inspire and support children, teens, and young adults deserve the spotlight all on their own.

Together, let's reach out to the men in our lives who make a difference, both to us and to our children, because they suit up, show up, and do the right thing. These are the good men who show us that women do not corner the market on nurturing and supporting others. They might be our fathers, stepfathers, grandfathers, uncles, or family friends. What they have in common is taking a loving concern for the young people in their lives, and doing all they can to be a positive male influence. We salute you. You make a huge difference.

Men and women are different, and we provide children and young adults with different things. I often think of it as women bringing children INTO the world and men taking children OUT into the world, helping them launch into the adult world, separate from their mother, and become a successful adult. All our lives, we benefit from having a positive, kind male role model we respect and can turn to for advice. It's not that you can't succeed without that support; it just makes it so much easier. It gives you a firm foundation. You have someone to ask about the exclusively male perspective on life, and ask for their input or guidance.

Good dads stay connected to their children, whether or not they are still married to that child's mother. They stay involved and actively engaged with their child or children all their lives. We hope that our marriages endure, but the parent-child relationship must endure all your life. In research by the Center for the Family in Transition in Mill Valley, California, Judith Wallerstein, Ph.D., and her team has done the longest study to date on outcomes for children of divorce. One of the worst things that can possibly happen to children in their parents' divorce is that their father disengages, in terms of emotional support, time, and financial support. I often caution parents I counsel not to do this. Parents who love their children stay involved, no matter what.

Grandfathers, stepfathers, and uncles can all be critically important roles, defined by who plays the role and how you play it. It's messy to get involved. You have to give---time, attention, listening, support. You can receive incredible rewards by becoming a positive male influence. You might be the only chance a particular child in your life has to know a honest, kind, nurturing, grounded man. Both girls and boys need the positive male adult energy to have successful careers and relationships later on.

This week, give some affirmation and applause to the good men in your life who nurtured and supported you, or who give that love and positive male role modeling to your children. Stand-up guys are sometimes taken for granted, but they really shouldn't be. Strong, kind, loyal and devoted men are an incredible blessing, both to good women and to building a wonderful next generation. We honor you for defining what a good man is really like.

A Tribute to Good Dads

Father's Day is approaching this next week. Sometimes Father's Day doesn't get the same play that Mother's Day does a month earlier, but good dads are very important, and they deserve a tribute all their own.

Good dads aren't afraid to get involved when children are small: they diaper, bathe, feed, soothe, and play with babies. Later, they teach us to play sports, help with school projects, teach us how to drive, give us some rules for dating, and lead us to thinking about the future: college, career, and money. They teach us about men, and the masculine perspective on things. Good dads are solid, supportive, productive, trustworthy, and honorable. Dads help us move out and launch successfully. They listen.

Good dads stay involved even after divorces happen. They understand that parenting is for the rest of your life, no matter what. The very worst thing that can happen to children of divorce is that a parent can go away and not stay involved, emotionally, financially, or in terms of time.

Good grandfathers are worth their weight in gold. They show up and suit up to be involved with their grandchildren, and support their children through difficult and overwhelming phases of parenting. Good grandfathers take time to teach their grandchildren life skills, like how to work on a car, or save or invest money, or plant a garden. A strong relationship with your grandfather gives children roots.

Loving and kind stepfathers can be incredibly important. Just because you're not biologically related doesn't mean you can't be a caring mentor and presence in your partner's children's lives. It can be what you are willing to put into it. If you are a stepfather, then you are choosing to step in where a child has already experienced some loss. It will be important to be patient and understand it may be difficult for this child to trust. Your ability to show love, concern, interest and support of a child that is not your own can be one of the best things that ever happened to both of you. The choice is yours.

Here's a toast to dads, granddads, stepdads, and all the other good men who get outside themselves to reach out and help raise the next generation. We see you, we appreciate you, and we are grateful for you. Happy Father's Day!

Here's To The Good Guys

Father's Day is coming up on June 20. For our family, Father's Day is timed just after a line-up of family birthday celebrations, Mother's Day, Memorial Day weekend, the start of summer, and graduations. It could easily get lost in the parade of other events.

We can't let Father's Day go unheralded. Great men, and the important role they play in our lives---as fathers, step-fathers, and grandfathers---deserve to be celebrated. These good men provide families with stability, protection, integrity, honesty and wisdom. They are role models to sons and grandsons, and set high standards for their daughters and granddaughters to look for in their own partnership.They set a foundation for family and traditions to be built on.

Fathers and mothers are NOT interchangeable for children. Mothers bring children into the world and nurture them with tenderness and understanding. It is fathers who take children out into the world and develop a child's independence and journey into real life. Yale University did a fatherhood study comparing men and womens' parenting style, and found that even with their toddlers at a playground there were interesting and significant differences. Men gave their children more space and freedom and pushed toddlers higher in swings, while women kept their little ones closer.The gender-based differences aren't good or bad, but they do suggest that fathers consistently play a different role in childrens' lives. They often encourage more adventure and healthy risk-taking than mothers might. At times we mothers need to be reminded to let go a little and not overprotect.

A special salute to fathers who end up divorced from their childrens' mother, but stay involved and attached to the chidren. While we would never choose to have children experience their parents divorcing while they are trying to grow up, it does happen. A 50 year longitudinal study at the Center for the Family in Transition in Mill Valley, California, lead by researcher Judith Wallerstein found important implications for fathers. While children have their own grief process in dealing with their parents divorce, one of the worst potential impacts is if the father disappears and is no longer emotionally or financially involved with his children when he is no longer with their mother. Let's praise the divorced dads who hang in there and stay in the game with their childrens' lives.

Lets honor step-fathers, too, who roll up their sleeves and get involved to help finish the parenting job in a loving and kind way. Children who have lived through their parents' divorce need undertanding, friendship, stability and kindness. None of the step-family relationships come instantly. They develop over time and with patience. It may take time to trust. Divided loyalties normally occur in step-families. Taking a gentle, long-term pespective is important. The American Stepfamily Association says that it takes on average 7 years to fully integrate a blended family. Kudos to the stepdads whose hearts are big enough to love not only their own children but also the other hearts entrusted to their care. You will end up being loved by all and having a richer life. The heart is an amazing thing.

Grandfathers who are true patriarchs, and get involved in the day to day lives of their grandchildren, are incredible blessings to their families. Grandchildren can hear advice and loving wisdom from you that they would react to if it came from mom and dad. Grandfathers, if they wish, can teach life skills, and because they have more time, can be more patient than parents. If you have made your own passages in life, grandfathers can be the wise sages and infrastructure of the family core. Hooray for excellent grandfathers who are unselfish enough to share of themselves and help impart life lessons they've learned.

So Happy Fathers' Day, and here's to the good guys who appear in our lives and in our families. We are grateful for your special contributions to our families. What a difference you make.