Influences on fatherhood
From time to time, Be The Dad Movement will be on the road, meeting fathers where they are.
We met with Mark Modesti, a father and husband, who was on his way to meet and engage students at Greenville College in Illinois. On the way, we spoke about the experiences with our own fathers and some of the most important influences on fatherhood. Here’s a summary of our conversation.
Mark: You are going to have an enormous impact on your children – good or bad.
The most common influence among incarcerated men is the absence of a father or father figure. Fathering does not have to be all or nothing. It doesn’t always have to be a ground-shaking effort. With just a little bit of affirmation and a little bit of entering their world, you can make an impact. Instead of just saying ‘how is it going?’ once, say ‘how’s it really going?’ and try to have a real conversation.
John: What would you say to some of those fathers who, like Joel’s father (last week’s blog), didn’t have a father around; how do you reverse that trend or what’s your advice for them? Maybe they are a little overwhelmed; there are pieces missing in their own lives.
Mark: (If you have a wife) One of the most important aspects of you being a father is that you have a wife. She’s probably better at engaging with those children; she has an intuition. You reinforce each other. Watch her and learn from her and look at the way she engages. My wife, I admire so much the way she was so tuned into our kids emotionally; everything from, when she was thirsty, she got water for the kids. It was remarkable. Our marriage is going to be foundational to our fatherhood.
Dads, good fathering does not happen in a vacuum. We need to understand and take our role seriously. We need to learn how to be the dad. We can learn from other men. We can learn from our wives. But, we need to practice, just like we would for any sport or any activity in which we would want to improve upon.
As we learned from Joel Triska last week, ‘this is not a light burden; this is important and requires our best efforts.’
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