Fatherhood

"The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother."
- Rev. Theodore Hesburgh

"I watched a small man with thick calluses on both hands work fifteen and sixteen hours a day. I saw him once literally bleed from the bottoms of his feet, a man who came here uneducated, alone, unable to speak the language, who taught me all I needed to know about faith and hard work by the simple eloquence of his example."
- Mario Cuomo

My father always used to say that when you die, if you've got five real friends, then you've had a great life.
- Lee Iacocca 1944-

Until you have a son of your own . . . you will never know the joy, the love beyond feeling that resonates in the heart of a father as he looks upon his son. You will never know the sense of honor that makes a man want to be more than he is and to pass something good and hopeful into the hands of his son. And you will never know the heartbreak of the fathers who are haunted by the personal demons that keep them from being the men they want their sons to be.
- Kent Nerburn 1917- from Letters to My Son

My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.
- Jim Valvano

Fatherhood is pretending the present you love the most is soap-on-a-rope.
- Bill Cosby

"I just owe almost everything to my father [and] it's passionately interesting for me that the things that I learned in a small town, in a very modest home, are just the things that I believe have won the election."
- Margaret Thatcher

"Father! To God himself we cannot give a holier Name. "
- William Wordsworth

The importance of fathers is often minimized and discredited in society today. In the media and entertainment fathers are often seen as inept bunglers and the brunt of a series of jokes. Admittedly mothers were often put in this same position in the past; however neither stereotype is helpful for children or families.

Please read in the supplemental material linked below, just some of the reasons why father are so important.

Key Word Search

Google Parenting and/or Google Scholar search engines below.

“importance of fathers” “what do children learn from fathers” “the role of fathers” father-child interaction, father-child relations, fathers

You may also be interested in the linked journal:
http://www.mensstudies.com/content/h167131672wu/?p=96c38deb9cfb4bfa84e40dc2038e6068&pi=0

Supplemental Material:
The Importance of Fathers in Children's Lives
The Importance of Fathers in the Healthy Development of Children
The importance of fathers
Let’s talk about importance of fathers in children’s lives
Importance of Being A Father National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse
Married Fathers: America’s Greatest Weapon Against Child Poverty
Young children Of Solitary Mother and father And Crime Rates
Children Who Have An Active Father Figure Have Fewer Psychological And Behavioral Problems
Super Dad: Protector of Children, Preventor of Crime
Poems about Fatherhood - Index Page
New Father - Being a Father - Fatherhood


Alabama, "I Was Young Once Too" is a great "father" song.





More quotes:

My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, "You're tearing up the grass." "We're not raising grass," Dad would reply. "We're raising boys." ~Harmon Killebrew



He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. ~Clarence Budington Kelland


A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty. ~Author Unknown


Sometimes the poorest man leaves his children the richest inheritance. ~Ruth E. Renkel


A father carries pictures where his money used to be. ~Author Unknown


The words that a father speaks to his children in the privacy of home are not heard by the world, but, as in whispering-galleries, they are clearly heard at the end and by posterity. ~Jean Paul Richter


There's something like a line of gold thread running through a man's words when he talks to his daughter, and gradually over the years it gets to be long enough for you to pick up in your hands and weave into a cloth that feels like love itself. ~John Gregory Brown, Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery, 1994

Additional resources and articles:

Backyard Tents and Child Development | Psych Central