fatherhood – Ramblings of a Christian Father

Kids say the darndest things…

It’s very true that our kids say the darndest, most brutally honest things, they get it from somewhere. Everything our kids do, they have learned it some place, from someone, somehow. A number of the things that they pick up, we don’t really mind, but it isn’t always the good things they pick up on.

Our kids look to us for what to do in social interactions and in all situations. Face it, you talk to your friends and co-workers completely different than you do around your house with your family and children, well maybe. None of us really think about some of the things we say or do, until they are repeated or done by our kids. There are so many kid’s today that are constantly in trouble, either at school or even the police, because of poor guidance or honestly a lack there of.

We have to guide our kids in the right ways try our hardest to keep them from doing just really stupid things. I mean yes there is a fine line from being an over-protective parent, a controlling parent, and a crazy, but that is part of being a parent. Face it, as a parent you are to be a parent not your child’s friend. Now don’t get me wrong, you need to be there for your children, but being the cool parent, isn’t always going to be the best thing for your kids. Now I’m not saying that I’m “World’s Greatest Dad” and should teach classes on how to be a father, but sometimes you go somewhere and you just think – I’m not doing so bad a am I…

We all have seen the kids, that make you think I wish they were your kid, or make you want to slap their momma. Pushing your kids to be respectful to others is one thing, but more than that, we have to push our kids to respect themselves. Too many kids today are “depressed” but are so privileged they don’t know what to do with themselves. We have pushed to far into the “everyone did great”, and the everyone gets a trophy mentality that there is no winner. This is where the problem comes along when these kids grow up and become part of “the real world,” if something isn’t handed to them, they don’t know what to do.

Let’s push our kids to respect themselves and others. Let’s push to break our kids of these entitled attitudes. Start the push from within yourself. Let you kids see you working hard for what you have and what your family has, teach them the value of money, time, love, and true friendship. Let’s see our kids change the direction of their generation and our world.

May 1, 2014 by corymcglone

Don’t worry, it will pass…

It’s a part of life, we all have things that we worry about. But there are only so many things that we can actually do something about.

This post has been running around in my head for a few weeks now, but wasn’t ready till last week, and I’m just now finding the time to get this all out. But we just finished up a series at Church called Courageous. We touched on the stories of David, Gideon, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, Benaiah, and Jonathan. Bible heros who didn’t go with what everyone else was doing and what was easy. They went against the grain of what everyone else was doing at the time.

The main point of all of these stories was that these people did not do what was expected of them. These are my favorite type of bible story, God using the unexpected to do amazing things. We all know the stories of David, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, God using young men to defeat a Giant that had everyone in the nation scared, and to change the mind and direction of a king. You see these people weren’t worried, because they knew what God was capable of, and what God had done in the past. It’s not a matter of knowing what God might do, it’s having faith in what you know he can do, and having the mentality to keep on going even if what God does is not in your favor.

One of our pastor’s main points in this series was to look back at your history book with God. Look back at a time in your life and look at what God did then, and now that your in the same situation, why wouldn’t God do the same for you now. So many times we get caught up in the situation that we don’t look back, or the situation is disguised as something completely different.

It’s these times in our lives that we have to just remember that God is always there and the He will always provide. There have been a few times in the past few years that I have just felt an absolute peace in my life and my families life. In all honesty, they were times when conventional wisdom would say, you should be concered, but I knew that God had worked this out this way for some reason. A few years ago this happened right after I had been laid off from job, and another is right now, when my wife quit her job to do her student teaching. Both of these times we were down to one income, now we have a child and we are on one income, but at no point have we had issues. We knew that God has is hand in both of these situations, and even though we couldn’t see it at first, the end results were amazing.

So my advice, to anyone reading this, if you can change the situation to make it better, go for it. If there is nothing you can do, pray for it.

September 30, 2012 by corymcglone

What a difference a Y makes…

It starts 9 months before birth. In the very formation of your life it is determined if you will someday get the opportunity to be a Father, and even better than that a Dad, and even better than that to be called Daddy. It is a Y that determines the gender of a baby as it is still forming in the mother’s womb. But the Y later turns a good name, Dad into a heart melting name Daddy.

We have all seen and or heard the saying that “Any man can be a Father, but it takes someone special to be a Daddy,” and we all know that this is true. The difference in the names just feels so much different even though they may refer to the same person. We also hear the non complementary terms about dads; dead beat dad, absentee dads, estranged father, etc. Then we hear people talk about single fathers, and stay at home dads, and the praise that goes along with those titles. But what I want to talk about is what I was blessed to have, what my wife had, a Dad that’s there.

We live in a culture now that the majority of kids are growing up with only one parent or between parents. Then we also have the families that are “in-tact” but not everyone is present. A kid needs a dad that is there. Dads need to be there for their kids, not just show up to things, but put up and shut up where our kids our are involved.

Fist Fish with Papaw — First Fish with Papaw

As I said above, and I have said before, I was very blessed to have a dad that was there for everything. He was my soccer coach, he was my boss, my teacher, scout leader. He was there for everything, he taught me how to work with my hands, how to respect people, how to work hard for what you want, and how to be a good dad. These are all lessons that I could have learned from somewhere or someone else, but he knew it was his job and responsibility.

And I don’t understand how a man, and I will use the term loosely in this case, can beat, neglect, or just leave their kids. The first time that my daughter said daddy, actually the first time I held her, I knew that I had something special. You other dads can’t tell me that when one of your kids says, Daddy jump please, you don’t say how high and how many times. Now I’m not saying its good to let the kids control things, but it’s just something about the “Daddy, …” along with a look that can make the hardest man melt. When a child says “Dad..” it doesn’t carry the same weight. It’s the Y that gets added to it, and makes the whole difference.

Happy Father’s Day to all the great Dads out there. Enjoy the day and enjoy your kids.

June 16, 2012 by corymcglone