A Dad’s Role is Love

A dad must provide. A dad must protect. Perhaps two of the more common answers when the question “What does a dad have to do?” is asked. Other answers are that a dad has to: educate, set examples of good behavior, create good emotional relationships with his children and just be there. All of these are great answers and are essential to the calling of fatherhood that many men respond to but I think there is something more essential and to the core of being a dad that these answers hint at. The first thing a dad has to do is to love.

The simplest way to summarize what dads must do is to say they must love. All other roles are subordinate to this one but they are also a fulfillment of love. Providing, protecting, teaching, inspiring, developing, educating, instilling value are all crucial things a dad does – expect individual blogs over the course of the next year on each one of these. All of those are things a dad does and therefore are a manifestation of dad’s love.

The usual definitions of love we find in the dictionary don’t suffice for this love we are talking about here. Merriam-Webster says love is a strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties. Interestingly, the example they use is maternal love. This definition and example don’t get at the core of a man’s love. Yes, we dads do have strong affection for our children and wives but this doesn’t completely describe it. As an aside, I feel slighted that the example of love is maternal love. Not because I am sexist or chauvinist. Rather because collectively as a society we have somehow seen the love of a mom as superior to the love of a dad. It is not. The loves are different but equal. They are equal in magnitude and importance but unequal in their quality. A dad’s love is superior at being a dad’s love and mom’s love is superior at being mom’s love. Perhaps that’s just two cents worth of wisdom but that really does help clarify the relationship that a dad has with his children.

A dad’s love is relational to his children. In addition to the list previously mentioned dads can also change diapers, feed bottles, do the dishes and laundry, go to the spa with his daughters and have tea parties. While only the last two in the list are traditionally more feminine a dad can do all of them and still be providing a dad’s love because it comes from him. Even if a father were to cook the dinner in his wife’s apron step by step the way she does and mimic her entirely even by changing his voice to imitate hers he is still being a dad, not a mom.

Men are superior than women at being men. Inversely, women are superior than men at being women. Knowing this helps us gauge our expectation for what we should do as dads. We simply must give of ourselves until there is nothing left. Perhaps that is the best way to describe a dad’s love.


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