By: Dr. Napoleon Paxton
Father’s Day is approaching quickly, and now that my own children are growing older I find myself reflecting more frequently to a time a few years past when I was a child. In particular, I find myself thinking about the many ways the relationship I had with my father has influenced the man I have become.
From my teenage years through my young adult years, I had many opinions of my father. Some of them were good and some were bad. The good thoughts revolved around the fun and laughter he brought with him everywhere he went. He was the life of the party and could always make anyone smile. It was easy to see the good in those things. The bad thoughts were of how strict he was as a parent, and like many young adults I used to vow that I would raise my children differently. I thought that many of the things he made me do were unnecessary, things such as eating vegetables, or making me return to the house when the sun went down. I vowed to let my children “live a little” and do things based on their own understanding of the world. My rational was that I considered myself to be very mature at an early age. In my opinion, I had a strong sense of what right and wrong was and I chose to do things that were right most of the time. I had strong morals and I knew that God was the head of my life.
As I grew older the wisdom in my father’s child rearing approach became increasingly evident. By forcing me to eat healthy foods instead of the burgers and fries that I wanted every day, I have developed a healthier lifestyle which has kept me off of the medication many people my age depend on. By setting a curfew, I was kept from the trouble that many young people I knew fell into, including prison and premature death. I also began to understand that the strong morals I developed early in life were due in large part to a man that took me to church, showed me how to pray, and stood by my mother, my siblings, and I through the good and bad times. In fact, I also started to realize that my maturity was not something I was born with, but rather was engrained in me through my father’s CONSTANT counselling sessions which started at an early age. In those sessions he would sit me down and explain to me right from wrong. He made me understand that God had a plan for my life and that if I would let Him lead me, the sky would surely be the limit!
Today I realize that many of the less favorable rules my father put in place for me which prompted those bad opinions, are the very same rules I have put in place for my children. Maturity and experience has taught me that the best fathers and mothers are able to put their children on a path to success even if it is at the expense of “good opinions”. The methods we use to direct them to those paths might not always feel good, but they are done in love and with their best intentions at heart.
My father is no longer with us today, so during this time of the year I find myself reflecting on the experiences and memories we shared. I thank God for the laughter and the fun, but each year as I continue to mature I am increasingly thankful to God for the hard lessons he taught because it is those lessons that have made me the man I am today.