Disappointing Dad on Father's Day

Tom Sheppard

6/21/2020

Today is Father's Day.  A day we celebrate dads.

All of us have dads.  It isn't possible to come into this world without one.  Some feel they have great dads.  Some feel they are great dads.  Some have disappointing dads.  Some are disappointing dads.  Some of us disappoint dad.

Some are disappointing dads because they aren't there.  They engendered a child and then, at some point before or after birth, they went away of their own volition.  Each became a disappointing dad because absence seemed to signal indifference, disinterest, or even hostility.

I have heard that some children who lose their father to death experience this same kind of disappointment or anger.  Blaming dad for his absence, although it was due to powers outside his control.

For those whose fathers are present, everything doesn't necessarily come out well either. Some disappointing dads abuse their children.  Sometimes that abuse is deliberate.  In other instances it may be unconscious. With still others, it may be more perception than reality.  After all, what child, denied the desire of their heart at some moment hasn't in anger cried out to their parent, "I hate you.  You are the worst dad/mother, ever." 

For my part, some things about my dad puzzled me for many decades.  Until my own children reached adulthood, marriage and their own children they remained an enigma.  Then, almost in an instant, like a bolt of knowledge from heaven some previously inexplicable behavior, words, or attitude of my own dad, pondered fruitlessly for years but never understood, becomes utterly clear and understandable.  Revealed by wisdom learned from experience only possible by having first traversed all the time and experiences inherent in those many years.  I needed certain experiences to achieve the necessary perspective, or context, to fully understand and appreciate some of my dad's behaviors, words, and deeds.

I know that at times my children have felt they had a disappointing dad.  At times that was merited.  I have never claimed to be perfect in any of my endeavors.  I do the best I can with what I know.  Some things I have done, or do, that disappoint them I am confident will look very different to them when they too have reached a point in life where they can more fully understand the context and realize that knowledge that is hidden to children because of inexperience is often revealed only through subsequent years of experience.  Time inevitably changes your perception of the past, present, and future.

The shoe of disappointment doesn't only fit children feeling disappointment with dad.  Dads at times too feel disappointment in their children.  As with the disappointment of child with dad, dad's disappointment in his child may result from actual bad behavior, from failing to meet expectations, or simply be a matter of perception rather than fact.

In Matthew 5:48 Jesus revealed what is the ultimate purpose of our life on earth.  "Be ye therefore perfect," he said.  "Even as your father in heaven is perfect."

In other words, the natural impulse most of feel at some point to grow up to be just like dad, is the actual purpose of life.  Not to be like our flawed, mortal dads, but like our perfect, Heavenly Dad.

Some, however think our Heavenly Dad is a disappointing dad.

We learn from religion that our shared dad is perfect. He has all-power, all-knowledge. He is full of truth, justice, mercy, and love.

Those who think he is a disappointing dad see bad things happen to good people and are disappointed that Dad didn't use his power and knowledge to prevent these bad things from happening to good people.  They see this apparent inaction as indicating that either he doesn't really care, isn't really all-powerful and all-knowing. They think perhaps it shows he isn't truthful, just, merciful, or loving.  They suppose this indicates either that he doesn't care, or perhaps doesn't actually exist, or if he exists, not with the attributes ascribed to him.

Due to experiences of my own, too deeply sacred and personal to share here, I know that our Heavenly Dad is real.  He is all-powerful, all-knowing, just, merciful, and loves us with a deeper and more perfect love than we can imagine.

Just as I have learned, through decades of experience, to understand some formerly inexplicable actions or words of my earthy dad, I have come to accept that many, perhaps most, of the actions or inaction of my Heavenly Dad will not be understood by me until my perspective is fundamentally changed through certain experiences.  Some of those experiences are likely to include my own death, and the lessons learned will not be understood until after I pass through that portal.

This belief that my Heavenly Dad is perfect and good, even when I don't understand why he allows some things to happen is called faith.  Faith is belief in something that is unseen and true.

Until I can understand the context of my earthly dad's actions, I am in no position to decide if I am justified in saying he is a disappointing dad.  Likewise, in this life, I will never understand the context of the actions of my Heavenly Dad, so I am unjustified in deeming him a disappointing dad.

Of greater concern to me is whether or not I may be disappointing Dad, my Heavenly Dad.  Am I disappointing Dad in how I am treating my brothers and sisters?  

• Do I hate them because they have more than me?  
• Do I despise them because they have less?  
• Do I fear them or hate them because they look different than me?  

Am I disappointing Dad by breaking his house rules?  Particularly those house rules that keep our home a peaceful place?  House rules such as 

• don't murder, 
• don't commit adultery, 
• don't steal, 
• don't lie, 
• don't covet what others have.

Am I disappointing Dad by not loving my neighbor as myself?

Are you disappointing Dad?

If you feel you are disappointing Dad, don't despair.  Thanks to the actions of our elder brother Jesus Christ, we can repent of all our disappointing actions and Dad will forgive and forget them.  Shall we not also then, forgive others who have injured us, and leave judgment of them and their actions in the hands of God.

I am not suggesting we fail to enforce the laws of the land.  Those are given by God, through our brothers and sisters, to keep peace in this earthly home, and those which are just tend to align very clearly with those I listed above.

Enforce the law against unlawful actions.  And leave the judgement of who is disappointing Dad, to Him.

See Tom's political views on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/TomSheppardPoliticalViews/
Follow Tom on Twitter: @ThomasKSheppard

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM).

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein.

(c) Copyright 2020 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

If you believe Government is NOT the answer to all our problems, you will want to read
 Godvernment: Government as God

Don't Ever Fall In Love

Don't fall in love, ever.

Trust me on this.  I have been married to the same woman for nearly 34 years now. We dated for three months and were engaged for one month.  Doesn't that sound like falling in love?

Falling in love is like falling into a pit while wandering around the jungle of your life in the middle of the night.  And once you are in that pit, if the fall didn't break your neck, you are not getting out without a lot of effort.  And, while you are in that pit, you are easy pickings for any predator that comes along and targets you as their next meal.

And when the morning comes, and you wake up in this pit of love you have fallen into, you may not really like who you see in the pit with you.  Your new love-pit-partner may not be as physically attractive as they seemed in the dark of the night when you landed in the love-pit with them.  S/he may not be as witty or smart as you thought.  In fact, s/he may seem like the Heart song "White Lightning and Wine" was written about them, "In the morning light you didn't look so fine.  Guess you better hitchhike home."  Or like the premise of the movie "Coyote Ugly", which is based on the notion that sometimes, when you wake up the next morning in bed with an ugly stranger, you feel like a coyote caught in a trap and are willing to chew off your own arm to get out of the trap.

Hollywood movies and romance novelists like to promote wonderful, feel good stories about people falling in love.  In the books and movies, the romance is fast, the attraction is nearly frantic and overwhelming.  The characters are helpless to stop themselves from being caught up in the excitement and romance of the moment and "wham" they fall in love.

Unfortunately in many cases there is one or more spouses involved too.  And then, sometimes, the love story turns into a suspenseful murder story.  Like "Body Heat" where Kathleen Turner and Willliam Hurt fall madly, frantically, passionately in love with one another, but she is married to an older, rich man who refuses to just die off and leave the two lovers to the passion and romance that they so much deserve.  Or, perhaps you prefer "Against All Odds" where Jeff Bridges is the pro football player, Jeff Bridges, is hired to find the runaway girl friend (Rachel Ward) of James Woods.  At least in this movie, Ward and Woods aren't actual husband and wife, instead they are just embedded in a long-term romantic relationship.  Still, the love triangle acts like a black hole, sucking Bridges and Ward into its inescapable pull, and predictably destroying them in the process.

The bottom line of these scenarios is that someone is going to have their life ruined (or ended) because two people believe that falling in love is the greatest thing, and that love must conquer all.

Of course, who can forget "Fatal Attraction" where when Michael Douglas realizes that the passion of his affair is not as good as the steady relationship with his wife, he breaks things off with Glenn Close, only to have her stalk and physically threaten both him and his family.

But those cautionary tales still make the "stolen water" of adultery look sweet.

A foolish woman is clamorous: she is simple, and knoweth nothing.

For she sitteth at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city, to call passengers who go right on their ways: 

Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: and as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him, Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. 

But he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell.

Proverbs 9:13-18

And again, they promote the notion that love is the ultimate arbiter of what is right and wrong, because whatever brings together two people who love each other, that cannot be wrong.  Right?

Even Biblical apologists at times try to gloss over the disastrous effects that came from David's taking of Uriah's wife Bathsheeba to his bed.

Falling in love also is a wonderful marketing ploy, not only for books and movies.  It tends to be the main fuel for the whole Valentines Day industry.  How many ads do you hear around then that talk about "falling in love" or "falling in love again?"

Now, after reading this much of my rant against falling in love, and given what I said at the start about my own whirlwind courtship and lengthy subsequent marriage, you may think that I am just a jaded, joyless, old curmudgeon, speaking from the depths of a bitter marriage.  That couldn't be further from the truth.

I am a hopeless romantic and I really, deeply love my wife and am happy to be married to her.  When the work day is over, I always hurry home to be with her and there is no one else I would rather spend time with than her.  But, we didn't fall in love.  We did something much hotter, stronger, more satisfying, and longer lasting than falling in love.  We chose to love each other, and we do it over and over again.

You see, the Hollywood and 5th Avenue marketing geniuses' ideas of love is not love, it is really just passion and sex.

Passion and sex are powerful sales agents. And, they are much more easily conveyed in ads, movie trailers and movies than is love.

Don't get me wrong, there was, and is, plenty of passion involved in the courtship between my wife and me.  But, we never let the passion push us into prematurely, or unthinkingly, deepening our relationship.  We both looked very carefully at each other and decided if we could stand the idea of being with each other every day even after the good looks and youth have faded away.  Fortunately for me, she thought she could still enjoy being with me.

You could say that we followed the dictum that says, "before you get married make sure you have your eyes wide open.  After you get married, keep them half closed."

So, my wife and I were definitely, strongly attracted to each other.  But both of us looked beyond the moment, the attraction and the passion, we looked beyond the whole "falling in love" thing.  And we decided we could love each other even when the heat simmers down and the bloom is off the rose.

Since then, we decide to love each other every day.  Just as when we were courting, I think about her during the day.  Sometimes she texts me or I text her, just because and just to let the other know they are in our thoughts.  We say "I love you" every day, more than once.  And we mean it.

We don't let others come between us, not friends, not in-laws, not any attractive people at work.  Not even our children.

We successfully managed to keep our romance alive through raising five children to adulthood.  During those years, we never forgot that the kids were there because of the marriage, not the other way around.

Now, we are "empty nesters."  And our romance is still burning as hot as it ever was.  We may not be quite as energetic lovers as we once were, but real quality can make up for a lot of low-quality quantity.  And even today, we sometimes find ourselves a bit "frantic" for each other.

I know it isn't the sort of thing to sell movies and romance novels, but it is the sort of thing to build long, happy and fulfilling lives with.  

Don't ever fall in love.  Instead, take control of your life and choose to love.  When two people choose to love each other, they never run the risk of falling out of love.  Because love isn't something that happens to you.  Love is something you choose. to do.

And while we are on the topic, let me say a few remarks about marriage.

The LGBT crowd has recently made quite a bit of noise about marriage.  What I find humorous about their dogged push for legally recognized marriage is that it comes after decades of denigration and dismissal of marriage as anything meaningful among the heterosexual community.  I find that funny because those who should have been champions of marriage have been among its biggest detractors.

Of course that diminution of marriage has largely come from the sector of the heterosexuals community that wants to enjoy all the benefits of sex without being hampered by the obligations that come with it, both naturally and legally.

Linda and Richard Eyre recently published a good article pointing out how the hetero community has largely discarded and denigrated marriage.

"... among the 96 to 98 percent of heterosexuals, most seem to be devaluing or completely disregarding the value of marriage. The largest threat to our society and to our economy is not the way people define marriage, but how enthusiastically and committedly they participate in it."

The LGBT community values marriage primarily because of the legal benefits it affords them.  Some value it because it also represents a level of commitment (legal, financial and otherwise) that goes beyond any heartfelt private or public exchange of vows which is only binding "as long as you both shall love" and the dissolution of which carries no more negative impacts than some heartbreak and some disappointment or disapproval among your friends.

The biggest vocal opponents of marriage are radical feminists.  The biggest silent opponents of marriage are hedonists.  And of course, Lucifer as I have mentioned in earlier posts.

Marriage, legal, binding marriage, provides a framework for the work of a lifetime.

It provides a foundation on which the emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being of children can be based to give them the best possible chances of success in this life.  Don't just take my word for it.  See what all the studies have shown about the effects of a nuclear family, or its absence, has on the lives of children.

• Children raised in intact married families are more likely to attend college, are physically and emotionally healthier, are less likely to be physically or sexually abused, less likely to use drugs or alcohol and to commit delinquent behaviors, have a decreased risk of divorcing when they get married, are less likely to become pregnant/impregnate someone as a teenager, and are less likely to be raised in poverty. ("Why Marriage Matters: 26 Conclusions from the Social Sciences," Bradford Wilcox, Institute for American Values, www.americanvalues.org/html/r-wmm.html)
• Children receive gender specific support from having a mother and a father. Research shows that particular roles of mothers (e.g., to nurture) and fathers (e.g., to discipline), as well as complex biologically rooted interactions, are important for the development of boys and girls. ("Marriage and the Public Good: Ten Principles," 2006, www.princetonprinciples.org)
• A child living with a single mother is 14 times more likely to suffer serious physical abuse than is a child living with married biological parents. A child whose mother cohabits with a man other than the child's father is 33 times more likely to suffer serious physical child abuse. ("The Positive Effects of Marriage: A Book of Charts," Patrick Fagan, www.heritage.org/Research /Features/Marriage/index.cfm)
• In married families, about 1/3 of adolescents are sexually active. However, for teenagers in stepfamilies, cohabiting households, divorced families, and those with single unwed parents, the percentage rises above 1/2. ("The Positive Effects...")
• Growing up outside an intact marriage increases the chance that children themselves will divorce or become unwed parents. ("26 Conclusions..." and "Marriage and the Public Good...") * Children of divorce experience lasting tension as a result of the increasing differences in their parents' values and ideas. At a young age they must make mature decisions regarding their beliefs and values. Children of so called "good divorces" fared worse emotionally than children who grew up in an unhappy but "low-conflict'"marriage. ("Ten Findings from a National Study on the Moral and Spiritual Lives of Children of Divorce," Elizabeth Marquardt, www.betweentwoworlds.org)

Marriage also provides the framework for the physical, social, mental, financial and spiritual health of the spouses.  Together, spouses can better prepare for retirement, both financially, physically, and emotionally.  As they work together, they can divide and conquer the challenges of life.  Together, they can manage to pool resources and build wealth needed for both the fun and responsibilities of life.

And, by the way, married people get more sex than single people.  Just in case you were thinking that wasn't the case.  And, contrary to sitcoms and Hollywood movies, when there is a foundation of years of trust and intimacy, and a commitment to each others' pleasure, the sex can be much, much better and more mind-blowing than the tawdry, shallow stuff that you may be seeing on HBO or pay-per-view.

And those who advocate cohabitation, living together, as a trial run for marriage, don't have a leg to stand on.  One, the statistics show that most cohabitations don't end up in marriage and of those that do, they are as likely to end in divorce as those where cohabitation did not precede marriage.

• "Couples who lived together before marriage tend to divorce early in their marriage. If their marriage last seven years, then their risk for divorce is the same as couples who didn't cohabit before marriage."

 http://marriage.about.com/od/cohabitation/qt/cohabfacts.htm

And, those hedonists love to get the advantages of marriage that come through cohabitation, without being tied down with all those pesky legal, social and financial obligations that come with marriage.  In other words, they get to have the milk, without buying the cow.

And, if you are among those who think that premarital sex is okay, stand by for another article in the future.  But in the meantime, consider this.  What happens if you don't measure up to your spouse's former lovers?  Now, you have predisposed your marriage to have difficulties over sex, which could easily result in infidelity and divorce.

Even free sex isn't free.  You are likely to pay a heavy price for it, sometime in the future.

But, to return bring this all back to my main point.  Sex is not love.  Love may be manifested through sex.  Marriage needs sex to reinforce the bond between spouses.  But sex is not the point of marriage either.

Falling in love is really falling in lust.  It is about the powerful urge to have sex with someone else.  That powerful urge is a natural and God-given thing.  But, it is not to be taken lightly.  While it is highly pleasurable, its primary purpose is not pleasure.  Its primary purpose may not even be to produce children - given that most of the time it takes a lot of sex to result in one pregnancy.

Sex is given to help bind us closer together as man and wife.  Love is given to help us channel sex into the ways that build instead of destroy lives.  The only proper channel for sex and love is marriage between a man and a woman, where commitment, both legal, moral and financial, allows us to give our all in the bedroom and beyond to our spouse.

Falling in love is a lie.  It is a pit of destruction.  Choosing to love, and choosing to love only your spouse each and every day, is an elevated highway to profound happiness and success, both mental, emotional, spiritual and physical.

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM). The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein. 

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein.

Visit Tom's Amazon.com Author's Page

(c) Copyright 2015 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved. 

 Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.