One of my most important jobs as a dad is to show my son how to treat women, and more specifically, how to treat a spouse. He can already pick up on the feeling of tension, watches my every action, and listens to every word, so it’s really important that I show him as frequently as I can how I believe a person should treat their spouse. As the primary male influence in his life I have a huge impact on how he perceives himself, and how a man acts toward his partner. I strongly believe that how I act now, and throughout his growing-up will resonate with him as begins his own journey into adulthood.
Luckily, I have been blessed with an amazing wife who is also a terrific parenting partner. We work together as a team to make sure that we are presenting the same message to him and so that he understands he can’t try to play one of us against the other. My wife is a great mother, who also finds the time to be a supportive and loving spouse as well. She makes it easy for me to want to work hard and strive to be a better man and a better partner to her.
My wife and I are a team. Neither of us is above the other, and we approach every decision and crossroads as a united front, praying and discussing together what we should do. A lot of this came about naturally through our personalities and hard work as a married couple before kids, but was affirmed and solidified after having our son and influenced by a powerful podcast my wife shared with me that I’ve linked here. The podcast is a bit long but well worth the listen for couples and really gave me some good insights on our roles as husband and wife.
I hope that I have already influenced my son positively in this area, and I know that I will get plenty more chances as we go along. I think this can be an often overlooked aspect of fatherhood as when people think of fatherhood it’s natural to think mainly of the day to day duties of being a dad, and I know it can be easy to lose track of paying attention to your significant other in the craziness of parenting. But, if being a dad is about guiding and encouraging my son along his life journey, then it is very important that I give him all the tools he needs, and that means showing him how I feel women should be treated and how I feel a person should treat their better half.
And just as important as showing him good behavior, I feel, will be me showing him how to atone when I haven’t lived up to standards and need to be called out. As I’ve mentioned before…one of the most important lessons I can teach my son is how to own mistakes and say “I’m sorry”. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve had to do this, but I know that one of the reasons that my wife continues to love and put up with me is because I have acquired this skill, and then also make a concerted effort to not make the same mistake again.
Being a spouse is hard work…being married is hard work. I want my son to know and understand that. It won’t be easy, and it won’t work out if you don’t put in the effort. I will make sure he hears and hopefully understands what I feel sums up the best advice I can give on loving your spouse…make sure to never stop working and trying to show and tell the person that you love how much they mean to you.
This is husbandhood…This is fatherhood…
This Is Fatherhood 