{"id":1359,"date":"2010-01-28T10:53:51","date_gmt":"2010-01-28T16:53:51","guid":{"rendered":"1630786097"},"modified":"2010-01-28T10:53:51","modified_gmt":"2010-01-28T16:53:51","slug":"an-open-letter-to-all-you-fathers-out-there-raising-sons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/an-open-letter-to-all-you-fathers-out-there-raising-sons\/","title":{"rendered":"An Open Letter to All You Fathers Out There Raising Sons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" style=\"margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.corkjoy.com\/images\/newsletter\/russell_and_sons.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"178\" height=\"211\" \/>Over the years of dealing with families, family issues, parenting, and the challenges that come with it, I\u2019ve noticed a trend developing.It was true in my home, and it\u2019s true in so many others.\u00a0 Here it is: <strong>Fathers who are either passive, afraid, or just totally disengaged in the parenting process.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Now let me be honest.\u00a0 I have three daughters.\u00a0 And when they were infants I felt pretty useless.\u00a0 But as they grew, particularly from girlhood to womanhood, I had a deep interest in the outcome.\u00a0 I always had four goals that I wanted to see as my girls grew up to be young women.\u00a0 I prayed constantly for these four realities to be displayed in their character.\u00a0 Here they are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>That they would be <strong><em>smart<\/em><\/strong> so that they wouldn\u2019t have to depend on boys to tell them how things work.<\/li>\n<li>I wanted them to be <em><strong>strong<\/strong><\/em> so they wouldn\u2019t give in to the pressure of some guy in the back of a car, or some lie or manipulation.<\/li>\n<li>I wanted them to be <strong><em>good<\/em><\/strong> in that they lived their lives to honor God and seek truth.<\/li>\n<li>And I wanted them to be <em><strong>caring<\/strong><\/em>; not cold, distant, arrogant, or aloof.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In my case, God has answered that prayer.\u00a0 Erin, Lindsey, and Paige are smart, strong, good, and caring.\u00a0 I wanted them to be marry-able; not just date-able.<\/p>\n<p>So here\u2019s my letter to fathers with boys.\u00a0 I have never fathered a boy, though I\u2019ve been a boy, and not been fathered.\u00a0 Men, <em><strong>we\u2019re raising\u00a0 a generation of\u00a0 boys who are not marry-able. <\/strong><\/em> Here\u2019s what I mean.\u00a0 They don\u2019t know how to take responsibility.\u00a0 They have\u00a0 no clue what to do with their lives even though they have private school and college degrees.\u00a0 They have loads of debt.\u00a0 Many of them still live at home.\u00a0 They are passive, display little initiative, and want to sit around and drink coffee and discuss the deeper things of life.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m calling out all you men out there raising boys.\u00a0 <strong>Your sons need you<\/strong>; not just your money, not just your\u00a0 presents, but your presence.\u00a0 We are raising a generation of young boys who are experience-rich and relationship-poor.\u00a0 By that I mean they\u2019ve been given a ton of things: trips, privileges, advantages, experiences that maybe you didn\u2019t have.\u00a0 But what they don\u2019t have is the engagement, influence, wisdom, and input of their dads.<\/p>\n<p>Fathers, <strong>raise your boys to be men<\/strong>; not buffoons, not weak, feminine boys, but men &#8211; strong, virile, good, man-up men who know how to treat women with respect and honor; who know what it means to work hard and sacrifice; who are willing to work to go to school rather than financing it by Sallie Mae and paying for it with their future wives\u2019 income.<\/p>\n<p>I really am fed up with the boy-men that I see.\u00a0 <strong>Where are the real man-up men? <\/strong> I\u2019m not talking about mean and nasty.\u00a0 You don\u2019t even have to own a gun or play golf.\u00a0 I\u2019m talking about real, strong, good, virile men who know what it means to wow, woo, and win a woman\u2019s heart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the years of dealing with families, family issues, parenting, and the challenges that come with it, I\u2019ve noticed a trend developing.It was true in my home, and it\u2019s true in so many others.\u00a0 Here it is: Fathers who are either passive, afraid, or just totally disengaged in the parenting process. Now let me be &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/an-open-letter-to-all-you-fathers-out-there-raising-sons\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;An Open Letter to All You Fathers Out There Raising Sons&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"series":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1359"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidfoster.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=1359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}