The Purposeful Father

Someone sent me a note, "Marvin, I don't know what purposeful father means." At first I thought this guy needs a lecture on parenting.

But then he said further, "I just want to be a full-time father." That froze me for half a second.

Many Filipino fathers wish to spend moments with their family as this one does. Even the time they're away is dedicated to that purpose. Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/melbagirl/384434525/

He turned out to be a Filipino father working overseas, while his family stays in the home country, the Philippines.*

I told him, "Rest tonight my friend with the thought that you are a purposeful father."

His purpose was to provide for his family and to spend time with them at every opportunity. That was clearly his purpose.

So, what's a purpose?

In the context of this blog, a "purpose" is something bigger than one's self, where everything else that one does revolves around. It's that something that is the basis of defining the value of everything else that you do.

Take for example the common story about three men working in a construction site. A man passed by, curious, and asked one of the workers, "what are you doing?" The first man answered, "We're digging a hole."

Unsatisfied, the passerby asked the second worker who said, "We're building a wall."

Still finding for a satisfactory answer, the passerby approached the third worker who said, "We're building a Church."

Which worker do you think had a clear sense of purpose? Two spoke about tasks. One spoke about a purpose. Is it clear to you which one is it?

Now, what's a purposeful father?

What do you think?

Is he someone who works 100 hours a week to provide for the family and leaves parenting to his wife? Or, is he someone who manages his career to allocate time at home and fulfill his parenting role?

Is he someone who equates parenting with strong authority? Or, is he someone in the house who encourages kids to take risks and be more adventuresome in life?

Is he someone whose parenting style dictates to everyone what's morally right or wrong? Or, is he someone whose parenting is backed up by a real-life example of a moral person?

The Church teaches that a father is the provider, protector and priest at home. Are these purposes? or tasks?

To me, those are tasks. Each one has a freedom to decide which task will accomplish the purpose. But what is the purpose?

A Father's Purpose is to Love

Don't you think the father's ultimate purpose is to love? I believe this is the whole point of parenting. A father's purpose is to convey a father's love to his children, without so, a child would be better off not knowing his father at all.

Once a father, one is always a father. It's a life-time commitment. It better be love!

Among fathers, that's almost a given. But sometimes, the desire to be "in" the crowd or the desire to "look" macho or invulnerable gets into the way of some of the men.

Let's learn from their lessons, and pray we don't have to learn the lessons from our own experiences.

I'll dwell more about parental love in my next post.

May your son model on you rightly.

Daddily yours,

Marvin

RaisingFilipinoBoys.com

P.S. Funny that in dealing with the Filipino audience today, the term "home country" needs to be specified more clearly. With 8,000,000 Filipinos overseash, either as workers, immigrants or permanent residents, that just has to be the case.

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