The Incredible Influence of Dad

This weekend my dad was inducted into the Wrestling Hall of Fame in North Dakota. In the 1960s, when the sport was just beginning in that state, he won back-to-back state titles (something he downplays) but his greatest impact was made in nearly 40 years of high school coaching.

Of course the thing about Halls of Fame or honorary banquets or tributes or toasts or awards presentations is that they are momentary, and they are one-dimensional. If you want to know who a person really is, it can only be pieced together from the firsthand knowledge of those who've spent lots of time at their side. I suspect any kid whose parent has ever done anything noteworthy knows this: awards recognize what someone has done, but only begin to scratch the surface of who they are.

I recount this because I imagine there are parents reading this right now who are wrapped up in a rat race, gunning for some promotion or leveraging their own advancement or trying to cement a big deal or hoping to impress some power broker. Let me assure you: where you go professionally, as important as it is to you, won't matter nearly as much to your kids. They already know how great you are.

Dad decided early what he wanted to do with his life, and he followed through with a steadfastness that is rare and admirable. His three kids - myself and two sisters - have already proven unable to do what he did, which is to hold down the same position at the same school and do it well for 39 years. (We have each moved in and out of (and in one case, back into) education.) Teaching is tiring - physically and mentally. Coaching at any level is emotional. It helps to have a winning team, but Dad's teams didn't always win. They were occasionally great, often average, and sometimes terrible. The most we ever felt this was some weekend grumpiness now and then, but by Sunday night he'd bounce back to his normal self and when you heard him whistling and grading papers you knew all was well again. And when, in 2006, it was time to be done, he was done. There was nothing sentimental or magic to him about reaching the 40-year plateau.

I'm not one who happens to believe that we can fairly evaluate ourselves: who we think we are and who others perceive us to be are usually quite different, and the truth is usually closer to what others see (I find that we tend to be too harsh or too charitable towards ourselves). So as to how much of my dad I carry in me, you'd have to ask someone else. I can, however, readily recognize his influence on my sisters.

All three of us siblings are pretty pragmatic. That comes straight from Dad. If it didn't work, he'd try to fix it, and if he couldn't fix it, well, you'd have to live without it. "It's easier to get forgiveness than permission" was his motto, and it was rare that he couldn't get one or the other. His tastes are simple (so are each of ours) and he never displayed an appetite for wealth. He fought for the underdog. Wrestling sometimes attracted kids who were rough around the edges, and he welcomed the chance to give them something constructive to do - "Maybe this will change them," he'd say. When we played softball with the neighborhood kids, he developed a rotation system that constantly circulated players from batting to fielding and as a result there were no teams and no losers and no score - just fun, which was all anyone wanted. As the head of the teacher's union he advocated for fair pay, and in later years, when he himself was near the top of the salary scale, he pushed for pay increases to go to starting teachers rather than veterans, saying, "They need it more than we do." He felt strongly about that. My sisters have carried that seed of justice into their own lives. As the only boy in the family, I was the only one to wrestle for him (girls didn't wrestle, not in his world; he felt especially strongly about that!). While Mom ran the day-to-day operations of our house - the meals, the school shopping, the scheduling - and also much of the discipline, when Dad spoke up to discipline, you knew it was serious and that was it.

Men, especially great men, are driven by vision. They imagine what could be and set out to achieve or establish it. Sometimes the task takes precedence over the people involved, and the product is a damaging ambition. But it's also that doggedness in men that suits them to be good dads. Men - and dads - dream big. They're wired to lead and conquer. The effect of such vision on kids can be powerful. For my dad and I, this played out in the realm of academic science competitions, another passion of his that started 23 years ago and continues to this day. Spurred by what we saw at the national level, our creations got each year better and ever-more complex, and we did in fact win national awards for them. What I learned from this was to set my sights high, to seek out the best and then better it.

What would happen if every man pursued the future and the health and the reputation of his kids as doggedly as he pursued achievement in his own life? What if dads turned the power of their vision onto the direction of their sons and daughters? Some of us fear the answer, based on our experience with dads who vicariously lived through their kids, pushing them in directions and at speeds they didn't want to go. But what if, at the same time a dad was training his vision on the future of his kids, he was equipped with the qualities of empathy and compassion and tenderness - in a word, his humanity - so that he developed a keen sense of when to push and when to hold back? The answer is, you'd have a really great dad; but not only that, you'd have a really great kid.

We need more dads like that, and the church has a role in calling men to that level of responsibility. Honestly, we can imagine and build great cities, industrial plants, robotic technology, and space travel; can we not also cast a vision for kids that lifts them above despair, boredom, self-debasement, and a future as pawns in this consumerist melee? A vision that dreams for them the realization of their identity in Jesus Christ and fulfillment of each one's God-given potential? More simply, why doesn't men's natural ambition translate into the betterment of our kids? More bluntly, if men are such natural go-getters, why are so many kids becoming losers?

How do we train dads, not to replace moms, but to be great at realizing their big dreams among people? The great barrier is our natural bent as men to bring a project approach to the table, to see everything in absolutes, to dismiss nonconformity as an obstacle to solutions (when in fact nobody is normal). Nowhere is the imperative stronger to round out dads' humanness than in raising their daughters. Our culture has minimized the role of dads and has certainly not trained them. Most men, having once been boys, can figure out what boys need from them; but it's not so easy raising a girl. Girls think and process differently, they feel differently, they learn differently, and they are motivated differently. (It's all most men can do to understand their wives!) But what if men were trained to be in tune with what their daughters need from them?

We're going to try. On February 28, Jeff Moore will begin a four-session class for dads of pre-teen girls. Using the book, Dad's Everything Book for Daughters, this class will explore how to better communicate with girls, spend meaningful time with them, listen to them and be a source of strength. The book is by renowned parenting expert John Trent, and Jeff, who is the father of a 5th grade girl and a 2nd grade boy, will also share his own experience with becoming an in-touch dad. Call me if you want in, or just show up at 6:00 on the 28th.

Most dads intuitively know what they want for their daughters, and being a man they know what makes a woman respectable and even admirable in the eyes of other men. How do they take their daughters there? The more I reflect on my own upbringing, the more I am convinced that home is the crucible that forges us for the rest of our whole life and seldom do we change from the course we're set on there. I hope you, if you father a girl aged 9-12 (or thereabout) will invest four weeks with us that could make a profound influence on the woman she is to become.

An Experiment Using Film

This Friday night we're showing the film Remember the Titans, in the hopes that we've hit upon one more way to open dialogue between parents and kids.

Those familiar with our ministry will know that I am a fan of using dialogue to teach, and anything that promotes dialogue between kids and grown-ups on important topics is a great tool. I believe movies - and increasingly, television shows - provide fertile ground for such conversations, because they place parent and child side-by-side in the role of observers and critics. A kid can more easily see behavior and attitudes objectively as an outsider, and recognizing and naming qualities - admirable and undesirable - in others is a great step toward mature self-examination. Secondly, it asks kids to recognize the invisible undercurrent of values that drive people's behavior. We are more likely to see and recognize false value systems in a context removed from our own. Related to that, watching a film as a family and then talking about it provides practice in being a discerning media consumer. Finally, identifying with characters in movies is an exercise in perspective-taking, which is an ingredient in empathy.

The downside to movie and television portrayals is their unreality. But that, too, can be turned to a strength when viewing is paired with discussion. Questions like Is that character someone to admire? or Would you have made the same decision? or What in this movie wouldn't have happened in real life? are essential for helping kids develop their critical filters.

The film we've chosen for the first night is Remember the Titans. Based on a true story, Titans takes us back to 1971, where T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, VA, has recently been integrated. When a black teacher is hired to replace the white head football coach, the stage is set for prejudice and hard feelings on and off the field, among the team members and its fans alike. This 2000 film stars Denzel Washington, and Washington's coaching technique will be one of the topics up for discussion: is it right for him (or any coach) to scream at players or degrade them, as long as the team is successful? Is this leadership? How do we square this with Matthew 20, where Jesus says whoever wants to be great among you must be a servant?

Another theme worth exploring in this movie (there are many) is the issue of resolving conflict in a group of people. The players initially resent each other because of race, and it takes leadership by key players to begin to tear those walls down. How is Romans 12:14-16 instructive here?

You get the idea. The "gameplan" is to meet at 7, give the parents a brief rundown on the purpose of the night (although if you're reading this, you're getting it) while the kids get some recreation, start the movie, break at "halftime" for discussion questions, and play the rest of the movie, with some "car talk" questions sent with you for the way home. All should be wrapped up by 9:30.

As to content: According to Internet Movie Database (imbd.com) , the movie contains "at least" 2 instances of "damn", 1 of "hell", 1 utterance of "crap", 1 incomplete "S.O.B." and 2 uses of "swear to God" as expressions. So, if you've planned to bring younger siblings or if these words are a deal breaker, please be forewarned.

In all, this movie is very inspiring and stays true to the actual events as they happened. It can be a great launching point for talking with kids about the Civil Rights Movement and the desegregation of schools, too. And, movies bring families together.

The Internet Movie Database entry is here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0210945/
with the imdb parent guide here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0210945/parentalguide

The movie got a thumbs-up from Focus on the Family's "Plugged In Online" site: http://www.pluggedinonline.com/movies/movies/a0000481.cfm

And incidentally, if you're interested in using other movies at home, Focus on the Family has put out a few books with plotlines and suggested topics for discussion: check those out here.