Rabbi Charles P. Sherman
June 13, 2003
Fathers, What Values Are Our Kids Learning From Us?
A few days ago I was in the Post Office and it was almost empty. Knowing Father’s Day was coming, I was surprised, so I asked one of the postal workers why. He said the week before Mother’s Day the Post Office was packed, but this week it is only Father’s Day.
I also heard an interesting statistic on the radio recently. While most long distance calls are made on Mother’s Day, the day with the most collect calls is – you guessed it – Father’s Day.
Father’s Day ought to be more than a day for making greeting card manufacturers and shirt and tie makers and the telephone company wealthy. It ought to be a day for thinking seriously about what it means to be a father. There is probably no more important task that any of us have in our lives than being a good parent. What we do and how we do with the raising of our children has an effect on them for many years to come.
Furthermore, we desperately need to celebrate fatherhood today, because it is under assault as never before. Granted that many young fathers are now more involved in parenting than their fathers ever were, yet 52% of children being raised today will spend at least two years in a home without two parents, and the MIA – the missing in action parent – is more often than not the father.
Equally importantly, four years ago there was a study done of television which clearly demonstrated that today on TV, father does not know best. In fact, the typical TV dad is portrayed as incompetent, if he is present at all. Out of more than 100 prime time network shows, only four received a positive rating for father as a good role model. As the chairman of the National Fatherhood Initiative states: “A substantial number of young men are now growing up clueless about what their primary role in the future family will be, that of a father. At a time when children badly need fathers, the networks portray them as missing, confused, aloof or completely uninformed.”
So this evening, let me offer some guides to parenting. One from an ad, one from the Talmud, another from a letter and than a concluding story.
If I remember the ad correctly, it was from Delta Airlines. The ad showed a little girl drawing a picture and underneath, the caption read “What your children see of the world depends on what you show them. So fly Delta.”
That ad is truer than its writer may have realized. A parent, very simply, is one who shows his child how to see the world, who gives his child its first impressions and perspectives and values and understandings of what the world is all about. Will our children think that the world is a rat race in which it is every person for himself, or will they see the world as a place in which to live and love and grow. That depends in large part on what we show them.
Exactly what do we owe our children? The Talmud provides a list of the obligations fathers and mothers have to their children, and it numbers only five things. 1. A parent is obligated to bring his child into the covenant. That means to give him a sense of who he is, where he comes from, what he stands for; to feel the awe of God, the joy of Shabbat and Jewish holidays and to experience the richness and fullness of life in being a Jew.
2. A parent is obligated to teach his child Torah. This means to give the child a heritage and a sense of values. The child must know that while he has free choice to make of his life what he will, ultimately God is the most dependable source of right and wrong.
3. A parent is obligated to teach his child a trade, for if a child does not know how to make a living, he will either be dependent forever or will become a criminal. A child also needs to learn how to conduct business, that to be fair and honest is ultimately more important than an extra dollar.
4. A parent is obligated to help his child marry. In ancient times, parents often chose mates for their children. Nowadays, for some strange reason, children think they are entitled to do it by themselves. But, according to the Talmud, enabling a child to marry is one of the legal obligations of a parent.
I would extend this obligation not only to help our children marry, but to teach them how to successfully marry, how to be a good husband or a good wife, how to communicate, how to speak with love and not with anger, to truly listen, to feel each other’s pain as well as joy.
5. The last legal obligation of a parent is to teach his child to swim. We used to think that this meant the Talmud cared about having a healthy body as well as a healthy mind, and that a parent needs to teach a child how to protect himself in troubled waters. But perhaps it means something more than this. What happens when you teach someone to swim? You need to tread a thin line. If you throw the young child into deep water too soon, the child will be frightened and will never learn. But if you hold on to the child too long, the child will never learn to let go and also will never be able to swim. Perhaps teaching a child how to swim is a metaphor for the mystery at the heart of parenting – the need to hold on to your children long enough, and yet to let them go soon enough.
Now some of these parental obligations can be fulfilled through the child’s school, or by private lessons. But most of what is really important our children learn from us directly. We teach our children far more about what is or is not important in life than we think. Frankly, most of what they learn, they learn from watching us.
So, fathers, what are our kids learning from us? Do they acquire a sense of self-respect, self-worth, self-confidence? Or are they getting the message that our success in work is more important than they are? Do they understand how important it is to know and relate to God through prayer and acts of compassion and kindness? Or, do they get the message to primarily look out for number one?
We are not legally required to buy our children designer jeans or cars or give them trips overseas – just to do the five things that the Talmud says. To take an active role in raising our children, to be their teacher, their guide, their source of help and inspiration. How many of us fathers have become human doings instead of human beings? Today’s priorities keep too many men away from their families either because they work long hours or because when they do get home at the end of the day, they have given all they had to give at the office.
So let me share with you a letter by a popular Jewish teacher, author, lecture-circuit and media personality; Dennis Prager wrote what he calls “One Father’s Letter to a Young Man.” I’ll share some of it with you.
My Dear Young Man:
. . . I am writing to you about being a man, a subject that not all parents, few teachers, and almost none of our social institutions address.
There is a lot of confusion today among boys, and even among many men, about what it means to be a man. This was not always the case. When I was growing up, my father and other adults regularly implored us to “Be a man.” The phrase was used so frequently that most of us boys badly wanted to be a man. In fact, even now, at the age of 50, I often remind myself to be a man. I have to remind myself because being a boy is natural; being a man is an achievement . . .
You are and will be, also constantly told that the two sexes are entirely interchangeable, that men are therefore essentially unnecessary. For example, you will read in the leading newspapers, and hear from most of your professors, that, aside from sperm and child support money, you have nothing distinctive to contribute to a child; that you have nothing to give a child that one or two loving women cannot give a child. And, you will therefore wonder why you should ever bother being a father.
This is terrible and sad – for you and for the next generation of children. Because if you really want to be a man, you should aspire to being a good father and taking care of a family. That is the ultimate challenge for a man. As manly and impressive as excelling in the military or in sports, few people can do as much good for the world as can a good father and husband.
But being a real man – a man who takes care of a family – doesn’t come easily. Our male nature is not monogamous . . . A male can stay single and sleep with many women, but a man marries a woman and tries to take care of her and the family they make . . . Marriage means commitment, and nothing makes a man more manly than commitment. . . .
You are taught to be preoccupied with your future profession, but the truth is that we don’t need good lawyers or good doctors or good athletes nearly as much as we need good men. And a good man is, first and foremost, not a boy. There is a time to be a boy, and then there comes a time to be a man. When your children look at you, they will not want to see another child; they will want to see a man. It’s now time to begin taking on the greatest challenge a boy has ever met – to start becoming a man. We need men more than ever.”
Yes, friends, we need fathers that are men now more than ever. Fathers who will put the needs of their children and wives above their own. Fathers who understand that their family needs more than more money and more things, but rather they need more of their time and attention.
So, let me conclude with a story that came out of the earthquake which almost flattened Armenia in 1989. If you remember, that earthquake killed over 30,000 people in less than four minutes.
“In the midst of utter devastation and chaos, a father left his wife securely at home and rushed to the school where his son was supposed to be, only to discover that the building was as flat as a pancake.
“After the traumatic initial shock, he remembered the promise he had made to his son: ‘No matter what, I’ll always be there for you!’ And tears began to fill his eyes. As he looked at the pile of debris that once was the school, it looked hopeless, but he kept remembering his commitment to his son.
“He began to concentrate on where he walked his son to class at school each morning. Remembering his son’s classroom would be in the back right corner of the building, he rushed there and started digging through the rubble.
“As he was digging, other forlorn parents arrived, clutching their hearts, saying: ‘My son!’ ‘My daughter!’ Other well-meaning parents tried to pull him off of what was left of the school saying: ‘It’s too late! They’re dead! You can’t help! Go home! Come on, face reality, there’s nothing you can do! You’re just going to make things worse.’
“To each parent he responded with one line: ‘Are you going to help me now?’ And then he proceeded to dig for his son, stone by stone.
“The fire chief showed up and tired to pull him off of the school’s debris saying, ‘Fires are breaking out, explosions are happening everywhere. You’re in danger. We’ll take care of it. Go home.’ To which this loving, caring Armenian father asked, ‘Are you going to help me now?’
“The police came and said, ‘You’re angry, distraught and it’s over. You’re endangering others. Go home. We’ll handle it! To which he replied, ‘Are you going to help me now? No one helped.
“Courageously he proceeded alone because he needed to know for himself: ‘Is my boy alive or is he dead?’
“He dug for 8 hours ... 12 hours ... 24 hours ... 36 hours ... then, in the 38th hour, he pulled back a boulder and heard his son’s voice. He screamed his son’s name, ‘ARMAND!’ He heard back, ‘Dad!?! It’s me, Dad! I told the other kids not to worry. I told ‘em that if you were alive, you’d save me and when you saved me, they’d be saved. You promised, “No matter what, I’ll always be there for you!” You did it, Dad!’
“ ‘What’s going on in there? How is it?’ the father asked.
“ ‘There are 14 of us left out of 33, Dad, We’re scared, hungry, thirsty and thankful you’re here. When the building collapsed, it made a wedge, like a triangle, and it saved us.’
“ ‘Come on out, boy!’
“ ‘No, Dad! Let the other kids out first, cause I know you’ll get me! No matter what, I know you’ll be there for me!’ ”
Sunday, friends, is Father’s Day, an American cultural tradition created by the retail business world so that each father will receive cards or shirts and ties or wallets or golf balls from his wife and children. But I believe we Jews should embrace Father’s Day with great enthusiasm as an opportunity to observe the Fifth Commandment.
For those of us still fortunate enough to have their fathers, let Father’s Day be a time for saying thanks to them and to God. For those whose fathers are gone, let this be a time for remembering how much we took for granted while they were alive. How they cared for and supported us and how, no matter what, they were there for us.
For those of us who are fathers, it should not have to take an earthquake for your family to know that, no matter what, you’ll be there for them. As a father, let them see in all that you do, that you are a mensch, a real man. Hug and kiss your loved ones this Father’s Day – and every day. Hold them tight and make each moment with them count, for in the end, that is what really matters. Happy Father’s Day!
I am grateful to Rabbi Mark Hillel Kunis whose writings inspired and informed this message.
