What Not to Do as a Father

Parenting is both an intuitive ability and a learned skill.  More than both it is a constantly frustrating obligation.  When you’re covered in spaghetti sauce trying to change a smelly diaper, or waiting up until midnight when your son stumbles in half-drunk, the benefits of parenting seem few and far between. 

All the stress, tribulations, and hardships that come with parenting do eventually pay off, you’ll be glad to know.  With children, we experience a truly unconditional love deeper than any other emotion on Earth.  We see ourselves and our partners combined in another being, which can be a fulfilling experience.  More than that, we are able to influence an individual from birth, shaping their values and character – promoting in them what we want in ourselves.

However, as any parent would tell you, raising a child can be one of the most difficult and frustrating experiences on Earth.  It’s tough being a responsible and virtuous parent when you’re tired and the baby is cranky.  If you are a father, it can be especially hard to set a good example.

Here are the top five things you should NOT do as a father.

5. Emotionally Abuse Your Children

Abuse is a cheap way to gain control over someone’s emotions and actions.  Abuse occurs when an insecure person doesn’t feel they can legitimately garner someone else’s respect, so they resort to mind games, emotion blackmail or brute force.  If your children do not respect you as a father, you need to examine yourself to figure out why, not punish them for having an opinion.

Abuse can be in the form of physical, verbal, or emotional mistreatment.  A good father should never hit, never manipulate, and rarely scream.

4. Disrespect Their Mother

You are your children’s window into social interactions.  As their biggest influence, the way you treat others is the way they will regard their own relationships when they are older.

Even if you despise your baby’s momma for whatever reason, your children will have a deep bond with her.  Do your best to show her respect and love, even if she does not show it to you.  Doing otherwise will conflict with your children’s natural feelings of love for both parents, and can confuse them on a fundamental level.

3. Spoil Your Children

All fathers want what’s best for their children.  Often they think that by providing them with every luxury possible, and taking them to the toy shop or ice-cream parlor every day, they are making them happy.  This may be the case on a temporary level, but if you continuously spoil your children they will develop a skewed work ethic. 

If you are given gold pieces every day yet do nothing to earn them, soon you will have no appreciation for their value.  Show them love by making them work for things – this will give them a true sense of appreciation.

2. Be a Hypocrite

You should lead by both words and example.  If your child sees you scream at others when conflict arises, he or she will use the same tactics to win an argument.  Show them how to react to situations by being a moral person yourself.  Instill values in your children by exemplifying virtue, not just by preaching it.

1. Be Lazy

Laziness affects the world because if you are taking from society without contributing to it, someone else has to bear the load for you.  A lazy father usually combines the previous four characteristics.  He will resort to abuse when faced with conflict, he will disrespect others when not given his way, he will reap the benefits without doing the work, and he will tell others to do what he does not or cannot do. 

Raising a morally strong and respectable child takes effort: you must provide for them financially, protect them from harm, and love them through attention and sacrifice.  The work it takes to raise a child pays off a hundredfold in the form of tangible success and immaterial love.