Being a Father

This is a talk that Rob gave in church last year for Father's Day. I wasn't there because it was the 5-week period I was in California with the kids. But he said it went pretty well. For this talk he didn't write everything out, he just wrote a sort of collected outline. So that's what follows:

Being a Father
Father’s Day 2007

Experiences/Stories of “Being a Father”

To start I asked myself the question of what being a father means. I looked up some conference talks and found some wonderful definitions and guidance on what it means to be a father. One in particular that I would like to quote from extensively is by L. Tom Perry titled “Fatherhood, an Eternal Calling.” I thought of just reading the talk and then after you were all amazed at the amount of work I had put into preparing, I was going to break the news that it was all borrowed. But I felt that it might be more meaningful if I just share a series of quotes.

Give quotes from talk.
1 - A family needs a father to anchor it.
2 - By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and ar responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families.
3 - The father is the head of the family. Fatherhood is leadership, the most important kind of leadership. It has always been so, it always will be so. Your leadership in the home must include leading in family worship.
4 - You preside at the meal table, at family prayer. You preside at family home evening; and as guided by the Spirit of the Lord, you see that your children are taught correct principles.
5 - You give father’s blessings. You take an active part in establishing family rules and discipline. As a leader in your home you plan and sacrifice to achieve the blessing of a unified and happy family.
6 - The father is a teacher. President Joseph F. Smith counseled us to “not let your children out to specialists, but teach them by you own precept and example. Be a specialist yourself in the truth.
7 - When you recognize the importance of teaching your children, you become humble, because at once you realize that this is accomplished by precept and example. You cannot be one thing and effectively teach another. You must live and study and pray for the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. You must purify and organize your life so that your example and leadership reflect the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
8 - The father is the temporal provider.
9 - Fathers, by divine decree, you are to preside over your family units. This is a sobering responsibility and the most important one you will ever assume, for it is an eternal responsibility. You place the family in its proper priority. It’s the part of your life that will endure beyond the grave.
10 - Every father in the church should function as the patriarch of his home. He should take the lead in spiritually guiding the family. He aught not to delegate nor abrogate his responsibilities to the mother. He should call for family prayer, family home evening, scripture reading, and occasional father interviews. He is the protector, the defender, and the kindly source of discipline. It is the father who should lead, unify, and solidify the family unit by accepting the priesthood of God and responding to the calls and privileges associated with priesthood authority. His relationship with God and His Son, Jesus Christ, is one of the beacons which will lead his sons and daughters through the stormy shoals of life.
11 - On becoming a father: It is a mistake to think that a boy will learn about fatherhood later after having children. It is usually too late then if a boy has not learned successfully, and his sons and daughters will receive the brunt of his inadequacies. It is much wiser to think that men are better fathers when they have learned about it when they are sons.
12 - Most of us know that fathers should teach their sons, but most sons are not aware that they could and should learn about being fathers. As a result, boys often do not ask the very questions or participate in special experiences that could teach them. Boys may want their fathers to watch them play ball or teach them how to fish, but they forget to ask their dads how to be a good father. Sons could ask their fathers about many different aspects of family life including, financial planning, child discipline, organizing family activities, what you parents have learned as parents, what your parents think a feel about you, and how to teach the gospel to your children.
13 - Some men forget that their first priority should be to maintain their own spiritual and physical strength. Then comes their family, then the Church, and then their professions – and all need time.

Some experiences that help me understand what it means to be a father.
Being a father is:

Holding my new born child and understanding a little bit more how much my father in heaven loves me as one of his children.

Bearing my testimony to my infant as I look into his eyes and knowing somehow that he understands.

Feeling the weight of responsibility of leading my wife and children back to our Father.

Rejoicing in the many firsts of fatherhood. First crawl, first steps, first birthdays, first stitches, first father’s blessing, and finally the first time that my daughter turns to me and asks, “Dad, what does hypothesis mean?”

When my son gets a tie and he wears it so proudly, sits on my lap at church and says, pointing to the tie “Like you daddy”

My daughter makes me more I love you cards than I know what to do with, writes me a recipe book and provides me with a map of my house just because.

When I discipline my son and he demonstrates his anger by turning to me, pushing out his belly and yelling “Care Bear Stare.”

Being a father is saying hello to my youngest son and having him respond with the biggest smile. You know, one of those smiles only babies can give that include their entire body.

Putting my daughter to bed one night after a very long day and having her say, “Dad, if somebody cut off your arms and somebody cut off my arms, and then they put your arms on me and they put my arms on you we would look funny. You would look like a weird monster and I would look like a man. Isn’t that funny.”

Brothers and sisters. Grateful to be a father. After all, being a father is what God, our Father has chosen to be, and eternal parents is what he want us to become.