Your Men's Journey

The Better Man’s Path to Being a Better Father

Honoring your father may be difficult for you; for others it may be easy. If you want to be a better father, there is no better place to start than with honoring your own father. I am going to challenge you to consider the following: as men, whether we like it or not, we are like our dads, warts and all. If we embrace this paradoxical truth, we will have a much easier time in our own parenting.

Simply put, those admirable qualities as well as the forgettable traits rubbed off on us growing up. Some men didn’t grow up with dads — for them it was an uncle, a grandpa, or even a stepdad. For others, it was Supermom trying to be Dad.

But here we are, grown men with memories, some good, some not so good. And to top it off, we are fathers ourselves in the midst of continuing the family cycle. Maybe you’ve chosen to emulate your father — and maybe you have succeeded to some degree. Or maybe you’ve sworn to yourself that you’re “never going to be like him.”

The harder part is what happens to that part of him we don’t want to be like. The answer for most is that we buried it, and that it lives inside of us. It’s the stuff that gets in the way of us being better fathers, husbands, and friends. And something inside of us yearns to break the pattern and be a better father, mentor, uncle, or grandpa to the young ones.

So for Father’s Day (and for the rest of your life!), I offer the following five tips to help you on your path to becoming a better man and a better father.

1. Acknowledge that you are like your father — both the good and bad aspects of our fathers find their way into who we are as men
2. Be accountable. As grown, emotionally mature men, we take full responsibility for our actions and words and consequences, intended or not. We don’t blame dad and how he raised us.
3. Have compassion. Remember that your dad or father figure had a dad, too, and that his skill set was directly related to what his experience was growing up with his father.
4. Recognize that some of his failed traits birthed your positive traits. For example, if your dad wasn’t emotionally demonstrative with his touch or words, the pain you felt from not getting that may have ensured you gave it to your children.
5. Forgive him. This is often the hardest part. Holding on to anger will block you in your life in your relationships.