There is no better way to start a blog about fathers and sons than starting with "IF," by Rudyard Kipling.
I was in sixth grade when I was introduced to the poem by my Reading teacher, Mr. Lewis. I didn't really get the meaning because Mr. Lewis' primary objective was for all of his students to merely copy it from the board without any erasure marks or even so much as a scratch-out on our papers.
"This will be a snap," I thought, "All I have to do is copy it." Those were my famous last thoughts as I finally completed one copy without any mistakes. It took me eight re-writes. In retrospect, that was one valuable lesson in perseverance. It was a few years later that I read and began to understand the poem's meanings.
Fathers play a special role in their sons' lives. Somehow over time, be it by modeling, leading, teaching or sometimes just outright demanding force, fathers help their son be a man. Rudyard Kipling sums up the description fairly well.
Sons frequently put their father on such a pedestal that they often are puzzled when their father's nose starts to bleed from the height of the pedestal they have placed him on. It hits sons hard to realize that their father is not the biggest, the best, the most or any other "est" suffix word you want to put in there, in the world.
I believe the poem leaves one thing out that all fathers should incorporate in their sons' tutelage. Humility. I'm not talking about the humility of winning or losing or of the humble nobility of privilege. Those notions are in the poem if you examine it closely. I am talking about the humility of not being God. Fathers should show their sons their willingness to be the first to bow before our Lord Jesus Christ.
My suggestion to all fathers is to start doing this as soon in your sons' lives as possible. You will be amazed at how everything else falls into place.
This blog that is dedicated to building father and son relationships will be a challenge for me. You see, I am neither a father nor do I have a son.Of course, I was fathered. But, my father died in a car accident when I was three. Though my mother remarried and remained married to my step-father for about 40 years, and he really tried hard and remained committed to the family until he died in his 80’s, as is sometimes the case, I did not feel fathered as his son. Don’t get me wrong, though. This blog is not a pity party about that. Quite the contrary, I have been raised by the Greatest Father there is, Jesus Christ, and He continues to guide me. That spiritual connection transcends circumstances and exposes each of us to the miracles of His creation. Many, many fathers do not ever get that across to their sons. So, I took my cues from the Lord and fathers and sons around me. I isolated the types of fatherly traits I felt were meaningful to me and vowed to avoid traits I deemed less than conducive to the fabulous relationship a father should have with a son. I explored and used those modeled fatherly traits as a son, brother, uncle, teacher, and friend. I used those traits in my own schooling, in my practices in business, as a volunteer baseball coach, mentor, Bible study teacher, brother, brother-in-law, nephew, cousin, grand uncle, deacon, mathematics teacher, and now a retiree. I have often wondered how I would do as a father, I don’t know if I will ever find out. But, if and when I do, I know I won’t be perfect. It has been my observation that trying to be perfect is one of the major things men get wrong about being a father. The father-son relationship is more about committed and consistent love, honor, trust, friendship, promoter, learning how to learn and how to teach outside-of-school requirements of life, respect, responsibility, noble obligation (noblese oblige), and duty. It is a relationship of shared learning of all of those things for both father and son. It seems to me that the most successful fathers have this teacher-student relationship as they experience these things in their lives. Fathers and sons mutually share opportunities to proverbially lend and take each other’s hand.
Indeed, this teacher-student relationship is something in which I have a great deal of experience. This blog, then, is a sharing of experiences that have molded my life and may help build father-son relationships. I want to share experiences about growing up, fishing, hunting, learning, worshiping, designing cars and rockets and coming up with all kinds of McGyver-type solutions to problems one may encounter.
