Hey dads, I know we both love to see the sparkle in our children’s eyes when they talk about us as if we were superheroes.
I mean, aren’t we all? Do you twilight as a caped crusader, taking down bad guys all ninja-like and pretending to have this secret nobody knew about but if they did then they would know you were the one that saved the world from a zombie apocalypse?
You don’t? Yeah, me neither.
As much as I would love to be a superhero, I am not. But I believe our children are, or at least we’re training them up to be. We have a great responsibility in teaching our children how real men should look and act. We’re teaching our sons how to treat women, and we’re teaching our daughters how to be treated by men, and we’re teaching them both how to react to adversity.
It’s no wonder we see so many fatherless children who’s circumstances are that of which their cowardly father took the easy way out and took the first train to Heckouttathere. This job is not for the weak, cowardly, or timid. This job of training young superheroes is tough! Don’t get me wrong though, there are definitely times when different types of “dad-kryptonite” renders you weak and seemingly useless. Times like watching a spinal tap done to your 3 month old, times when you’re too much of a coward to perform a musical number in front of a class full of 3rd graders. Or even times when your teenager asks you to go to a haunted house and you make an excuse to say no because you are too scared.
There are definitely those times.
We have to watch for those times, and look for other opportunities to be that example you so desire from which you want your child to learn. Times when we have to face adversity square in the eyes and tell them to back the heck up because we’re strong and even though we may fail, we’ll learn from it, come back stronger and beat the crap out of it.
Because we’re their father, and that’s what we do.
This is no secret, just look at past examples of fathers in the bible, or in other stories in history, or even if you’re not into that sort of thing just look at all of the superheroes in Marvel/DC: Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Thor, Iron Man, etc… each one of them had some sort of father figure who made a huge impact on them whether good or bad, directly influencing who they ended up becoming. You see, even Stan Lee and the brains behind Hollywood’s productions agree on the full weight of a father’s influence.
Get out of your mind and selfish ways, and think about your influence you are having right now on your son and/or daughter. Are you raising a Superhero or are you too busy trying to be one yourself?
