Manhood
Fathers
In the spirit of Father’s Day, economist Scott Pape tells the following story:
‘I’ve got a friend who is super successful, and very, very rich. He sold his business for $300 million, owns a resort, and hangs out with dignitaries. I was talking to him one day and he told me something that shocked me: “Looking back on it all, my most cherished memory has been reading Harry Potter to my kids each night.” Not the mega deals. Not the mega mansions. Not the pointy end of the plane. Reading a $20 book to his kids. And you know what I thought? I wondered if he’d ever told his kids that.’
In his recent book, Steve Biddulph says this: out of 100 men, usually only ten are close to their father. There’s a cycle of boys being close, prickly during teens, finding independence, then returning to their father as adults. The story of The Prodigal Son is archetypal of this.
Today, most men are estranged or distant from their dad, so this cycle is not complete. The ‘father wound’ really harms us in our growth and happiness.
Healing things with your father is often the key to feeling good as an adult.
It is a difficult, but worthwhile journey!
See, dads don’t always open up. We’re all too often busy: perhaps being the breadwinners, the hunters, the gatherers, the planners, the fixers. Yet what we really want is to spend time with our kids and let them know we care about them. That’s all that really matters in the end.
Biddulph says, ‘Manhood isn’t an age that you reach, it’s more like a flow of knowledge and skill, like a river, which you receive and grow strong in, and then pass on downstream to others’
Jordan Petersen says this: The kingdom of the ‘son and father’ is an improvement over that of the father or the son alone, as it unites the hard-won wisdom of the past…and revivifies the future.
It’s also widely recognised that when grandparents and grandkids spend time together, everybody reaps the rewards. On the surface, parents gain time to tend to other tasks or other children, but on a deeper level, the grandkids and grandparents enrich each other’s lives.
Whether you’re a son or a daughter, Pape's advice is this: If you’re lucky enough to have your father still with you, whip out your phone, hit ‘record’, and ask your dad the following questions:
•How did you meet Mum?
•What advice can you share with me about money, life and happiness?
•What does being a dad mean to you?
•What are you most proud of?
•How would you like to be remembered?
One day, it may be all you’ll have left of him. And you’ll treasure it.
Luke Swain
Head of Campus
