A dad is out shopping with his toddler. The toddler performs their job to perfection, grabbing everything in sight and letting the entire store know when they’re unhappy about Dad stopping them. Meanwhile, Dad is trying to keep calm, finish his mission, and get his child home for a much-needed nap. When he finally gets to the checkout, the cashier smiles and says “Mom has you babysitting today, huh?” The cashier chuckles, dad strains a smile, and everyone around them silently shakes their head in pity for the poor guy. Yet dads should never babysit – they should simply be dads.
There’s a decades-old belief that a dad is simply incapable of being a parent beyond making money, teaching sports, and threatening his daughter’s potential suitors. Consider how dads are portrayedin kids’ movies: dads are out of touch, they can’t keep their house under control when Mom leaves, and the movie ends with Dad finally admitting that the kids were right all along. Popular media reflects the growing beliefs of its audience, reinforcing ideas and influencing worldviews.
The idea of dad being a babysitter is a perfect reflection of this mentality. A babysitter’s role is to reinforce what the parents have established – rules, diet, education, etc. They try to maintain the status quo set in the house, making sure the parent’s desires are followed. Although the babysitter cares about the child, their responsibility ends when the shift is over. Ultimately, a babysitter is a part-time caretaker who doesn’t need to shoulder the responsibility of a child’s future.
That’s how we, as dads, are encouraged to view ourselves. We think we ‘re incapable of caring for our children. We hope their Sunday school teachers are teaching them good things. If there’s a problem, we hope we can hand them off to Mom since it’s her job to know what to do. We enter fatherhood already labeling ourselves as “incompetent,” with our thoughts and actions following that assumption.
Yet this simply cannot be so. As fathers, we have a perfect model of fatherhood in our Heavenly Father.
See what sort of love the Father has given to us: that we should be called God’s children—and indeed we are! For this reason the world does not know us: because it did not know him. (1 John 3:1)
When we consider how God treats His children, we see how wrong the world is about fatherhood.
- God is intimately familiar and connected with His children
- He disciplines us for our good, not from His anger
- The way He encourages us to grow is unique to everyone, with each of us having different ways God has matured us
- God’s goal isn’t to make us happy, but rather let us go through difficult times now because He sees the greater benefit later
- He never abandons us, but greatly desires personal time with each of us
None of these leave room for a father to be distant, harsh, or incapable. Instead, God models fatherhood as something requiring commitment, time, and a focus on our child’s growth. As dads, how can we stop being babysitters and start being the fathers God calls us to be?
#1 Make time with our children purposeful
These words I am commanding you today must be kept in mind, and you must teach them to your children and speak of them as you sit in your house, as you walk along the road, as you lie down, and as you get up. (Deuteronomy 6:6-7)
Life is busy and sometimes we have to count it a success to even find time to eat a meal together. However, a child’s worldview is constantly being shaped by whatever, and whomever, is willing to teach them. In this passage, God is calling fathers to teach their children about Him while sitting, traveling, resting, and rising. Quite literally, God says it’s good to have every moment of our day focused on Him.
Of course, that doesn’t mean we have a 16-hour Bible study every day. Yet God knows that the time we have before our children are adults is limited, and He wants every moment focused on developing them in to mature, wise, functional adults who are able to love and serve Him just like their parents.
#2 Consider the adult we are creating
Train a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. (Proverbs 22:6)
This verse is often misunderstood as nothing more than a promise. We think that if we take our child to church and pray during mealtimes, that they won’t leave that path. Yet this verse is much more than a singular promise – it’s also a warning.
Everything a child experiences and interprets is setting them on a certain path in life. As parents, and especially fathers, we carry a great responsibility in helping them view the world through a logical, functional, biblical worldview. From the time they are born, they learn to filter the world through the tools we give them. How they view conflict, love, failure, and even their own worth begins with us. We may tell them that God is important by how we spend 2 hours on Sunday, but what path are we setting them on the remaining 166 hours of a week?
God is good and made kids fairly resilient to our failures. However, we still need to consider what we teach them about life, and what kind of person that will produce in 10 years. Consider just a few ways we set our child on a certain path in life:
- Do we tell them they’re important based on how they succeed in school or sports, or how hard they try and how they deal with struggle and failure?
- Do they need to be successful in life, or serve God in whatever way He calls them?
- Will they love a person based on how that person makes them feel, or based on how they can serve God together?
- Is their happiness determined by their circumstances now, or do they know how to have lasting joy no matter what happens?
These aren’t things easily implemented by attending Sunday school once a week. As we spend purposeful time with our children, we can find guidance by seeing the path God wants us to be on and modeling that to our children.
#3 Love your lifelong role as a dad
So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31)
It can be easy to view parenting as a jail sentence. “Just 18 years, then I’m free to do what I want!” When we think that way, being a parent becomes little more than surviving until we’re unshackled from our burden. Yet God has a very different view in mind.
Yes, sons are a gift from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. (Psalm 127:3)
We all receive different blessings from God. Although children may not always seem like one, those blessed with them can take comfort that God has given us a wonderful task. That little infant we held years ago was trusted to us by a good and perfect God. He wants us to not only do our job by keeping them alive and teaching important life skills, but to ultimately glorify God in what we’re doing.
Loving fatherhood isn’t always easy, especially in a culture that undermines it. It’s easy to check out and spend our days waiting for something better to happen. Yet when we love the task God has given us, we are able to glorify Him through it. Not just with grumbling and slumped shoulders, but with pure joy because we’re on the path God desires for us.
There’s a temptation to let someone else take care of our children. Whether it’s Mom, YouTube, or just the Sunday school teacher, we all have a way of getting out of our responsibilities to our children. Yet doing so doesn’t just rob our children of learning about the world through their father, but it robs us of the joy we find by caring for God’s blessing.
Dad, this job isn’t easy. The responsibility of leading our families well is far beyond what we can handle. Let us always remember that God doesn’t require our strength and skill, but our humility and obedience.
We can’t do this job. But as we seek to grow in wisdom and maturity, Christ will become even more evident and wonderful to our family. It’s Christ who enables us to be more than babysitters trying to survive our kids. Instead, He allows us to be more and more like our Heavenly Father, loving and guiding our children in the way they should go.
