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TOO BUSY by Roy Bernard H ow much time do fathers spend with their children? Surely the results of a survey reported to be taken by school children could not apply to Christian fathers in Christian homes. Yet, included in the survey must have been a certain percentage of Christian fathers. The figures are very disturbing and quite unbeliev able. These school children kept tab on what time their fathers spent with them over a period of time. The time that a boy or girl had together with Dad amounted to ten minutes a week! This was together. A boy with his father, just the two of them, or a girl with her father. Young Mrs. Benton says to her husband, “ Jim, dear, have you time to take Johnny to the park?” She has asked him so often it borders on harping. He says, “ But you and Johnny went only yesterday— ” She sighed. That wasn’t the idea. “ I know,” she said. “ I’m the one who always goes with him. But it’s you he wants to be with.” She couldn’t count the times that Johnny had begged his father to play with him, in the park, catch at home, quite anything, just to be together. And Johnny would come to her often and say sadly that Daddy wouldn’t play with him. Jim was slipping into his windbreaker jacket. “ Got no time now, dear.” He was preoccupied. “ Going to work on A l’s motor and make a few dollars. We can use ’em, you know.” She turned aside despairingly. Jim felt all he had to do in his role of father was to provide the money. She’d told Jim that many times. And his answers were always the same. “ Johnny’s got everything,” he’d say. “He’s got his weekly allowance, good bike, all kinds of clothes, private room, playmates—here, give him this.” He’d hand out a piece of silver, and she sometimes thought he did it to ease his conscience— she hoped it was that. After which he’d say something like, “Have to go to the shop— ” something which left Johnny out. She said now, as she’d often said, “ I’m troubled because you don’t spend more time with Johnny. You’re his ideal—his pattern to grow up by. I can’t be the pattern. I’m afraid he might pick some man not worthy to copy. He wants you to be his pal.” She stopped, then added heavily, “ You just can’t see it— ” He gave her a peck on the cheek and was gone. She couldn’t help feeling that it was because of one of these so-called small things that children went as tray. It wasn’t good fathering. It was being careless to a dangerous extent. And how many times had Johnny said to her, “ Daddy never has time to do anything with me. When I ask him things, he says to ask Mom, or my teachers. Don’s dad has time to play with Don, though.” How well she knew that! It seemed to her an ideal father-son relationship. She saw them fly kites together, play catch, go for swims and hikes and they’d work
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together in Frank’s do-it-yourself shop in the garage. She could see that Don was a happy boy, wonderfully adjusted. His school grades were excellent and he’d never been in the least bit of trouble. Of course, so far, Johnny had not been, either. Except that she’d catch him looking wistfully at his father when he’d drive off alone in the car. She saw no reason why Jim could not take Johnny along. On two of these occasions Johnny had gone off and was gone for hours, no one knew where, and once she was on the verge of reporting him missing. “Where on earth were you!” she had demanded. He said he had been on an “ adventure” along the river. “You are not to go alone to that dangerous river again,” she’d ordered. She knew he’d often begged his father to hike along the river, but Jim of course hadn’t the time. So her mind held the distressing thought that one of these days something regrettable must happen—she didn’t know what. That was the life in the home of the Bentons, who were lukewarm Christians and now-and-then church goers. And what about father-daughter relationships? Need a father spend much time with his little daugh ter, or daughters? Or is this, too, the sole business of the mother? Let us see. Mother-daughter relationships are usually close. The little girl identifies with her mother, patterns after her—these patterns are vital. A boy must have his own sex, a man he admires, to copy. Of what value is it for a little girl to have a together- association with her father, a palship? Well, some day this child will marry. To her, her father is the example of manhood. He is, or should be, her hero, not merely a bread-and-butter getter with no time to laugh and kid with her, tease her and show he loves her in his man’s way. She’ll come to see what men are. like, that they’re very different from women. But the little girl who has no time with her father doesn’t get to know men. If he is indifferent, so will she be toward men; she is being conditioned, psychologists tell us. These days we hear much of fatherless children, those whose fathers have left them. Yet, the father of a family, if he does no more than supply the food, clothing, hous ing and money for his brood, is not truly a father. His children might get the same in an orphanage, or—God forbid—in a school of correction. Fatherhood is surely more than “ bringing home the bacon.”
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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