Nurse, King, Coach, Friend

Somewhere along the line I think I might have mentioned a podcast I listen regularly. The title is “The Aggressive Life” and it is the weekly creation of a Pastor named Brian Tome. Brian is the Founding and Senior Pastor of Crossroads Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. I love listening to Brian because he is down to earth and matter of fact about his faith and the way he applies it to his life. As the title of his podcast suggests, Brian is all in on life and how he wants to live it, aggressively. On several occasions his podcasts have made me reflect on parts of my own life, not only in the past but how I too can live more aggressively in the future.

One of Brian’s major goals is to help boys become men, real men. Men who are like my father and grandfather were. Men who love and worship the Lord. Men of strength. Men of conviction. Men of integrity. Men who love and honor their wives. Men who love and honor their friends. Men who want to be lifelong friends with their kids. Brians church hosts an annual Father and Son Camp which Brian spoke at recently. The title of his address was “Growing Lifelong Friendship With Your Kids” and it really made me think about my relationship with my sons and how we got to where we are today.

I certainly don’t want to minimize a father’s relationship with a daughter, but todays post is directed at men with sons and men who have yet to be blessed with a son. If we do it right guys, we can have what Brian describes as a “sacred” relationship with our sons but first we have to be a dad and being that dad is a process. It is not defined by a few moments in time. Brian states there are four stages of that process. They are, Dad as Nurse, Dad as King, Dad as Coach and Dad as Friend. As he described each stage, I thought about how I handled each with my sons. I must have done something right along the way because I do look at my relationships with my sons as sacred only behind my relationship with Jesus and with Terrie, my wife. So, strap in and let me take through those four stages as I lived them and as is always my goal I hope you can learn from my failures and successes.

That first phase – Dad as Nurse – I failed miserably at. I don’t know too many men who really embraced the nurse phase. Changing diapers, mixing formula, giving baths, all that stuff. Come on man, when do we get to go fishing, start throwing the baseball around, watching Monday Night Football with a bowl of popcorn between our legs? Terrie had to be really frustrated with me during this phase. The amazing part is both of my sons nailed this phase. True, they each have daughters so changing a diaper wasn’t quite as much of an adventure – they weren’t getting sprayed in the face but the power poop was still in play. None-the-less, they were both so much better at the nurse phase than I ever was. Fortunately, our sons are too young during this phase to remember it so we basically get off the hook – with them guys, not with our wives. Oh no, she has a memory like a steel trap and at some point you are going to be reminded about what a bad nurse you were so my advice for you young guys is, step it up! Don’t be like me. Giving a few baths, getting some poop under your fingernails, taking a shot in the face once in a while can pay big dividends down the road with you know who.

The second phase is when you feel like you have the opportunity to really show your dad stuff, it is the Dad as King phase. This is the phase where you need to make sure your son knows who is in charge. Pastor Tome makes a great point about this phase when he says the biggest mistake you can make is trying to be your sons’ friend right from the start. He needs to know there are rules. He needs to learn to respect authority. He must know there are consequences for behavior, both bad and good. I had a great role model for this phase. Thinking back on it, my Dad was innately good at this. Being a great “King” doesn’t entail being mean, abusive or unfair. My Dad was none of those. He was, however, the leader of our household. All authority rested with him but he was very fair and there was give and take. He used that give and take to teach lessons, lessons that I in turn tried to teach my sons. One of those lessons revolved around respecting my mother. This was an area where there was no margin. My sons knew the same thing. Showing disrespect for their mother, or any woman for that matter, was not tolerated and carried some of the most severe consequences of all the offenses a “boy” could commit. They also knew they were expected to respect their teachers, their pastor, their elders, each other and when they reached employment age, their boss. My sons knew there were rules in our house and wanton disregard for those rules came with sanctions. There was no such thing as “time out”. Instead there were increased chores, loss of privileges, loss of allowance and other lesser and stronger reminders that the rules of the house would be enforced. Unfortunately, in todays world, the King phase has been shouted down. It is not popular to be an authoritarian parent. The dads who dare to be leaders of their households are looked down on as the world attempts to eviscerate the traditional roles of the father and mother. Brian Tome says this is the most lacking phase of the process in our current culture. If you subscribe to his theory (as I do) that in order for you to get to the end goal there needs to be a flow from one phase to the next, a hand off of sorts, then this phase cannot be missed or substituted for in any way. It is very rewarding for me to watch as my sons have established themselves as the King in their family. Their daughters know who the leader is. They know there are rules that must be followed. I know they will become more responsible, more productive, more loving and more respectful adults because of the way their fathers exert their authority over them. Refusing to exert your authority will result in damage to your son that he might never recover from. On the other hand, I can’t tell you how many times I made a mess of things by over-stepping my authority. Virtually every time it was the result of my own hubris, discounting their growth and maturity as they became men. I will admit I am still sometimes guilty of that transgression even though they are now in their 40s and the realization of my mistake hurts deep down in my soul. I have spent countless sleepless nights reliving occasions when I ran over one of them, disrespected them unjustly, ignored their contribution to our family and what we want to represent or failed to acknowledge their accomplishments in leading their own families.

Providing you have done your job as King, your next phase is Dad as Coach. For me, this is when things began to relax a little and become more fun. Success in this phase is a testimony to your effectiveness in the King phase because in this phase you begin giving your son more margin. Margin to make his own decisions. Margin to have a voice in his interactions with you and other figures of authority. You give yourself the margin to trust your son to make the right decisions for him and the wellbeing of others. As a coach you show respect for your son and allow him to give you feedback. For me, this phase was when I began to enjoy witnessing and hopefully promoting the transition of my sons from the boys they were to the men they were becoming. I am not advocating that your job is over and all you do now is sit back and hope for the best. Not at all! Your job as a coach should never come to an end. Pastor Tome puts it this way, a dad should always want to be a backstop for his son. He should always be ready to stand in line with his son, shoulder to shoulder. Never failing to support. Never failing to nurture. Never failing to encourage. And yes, always willing to point out when a mid-course correction might be necessary. For your son to truly become a man you must allow him to have a voice and ultimately to determine his own path, to discover his Ephesians 2:10 calling and what God created him to be. I hope when Jesus calls me home, if my sons don’t say anything else about me, they will say I gave them a foundation that allowed them to pursue their dreams and become the wonderful men they are.

The final phase Brain Tome identifies is Dad as friend. To me, this is what you should be preparing for – being friends with your son. As you know any friendship involves some degree of work and that is true with your son as we have already discussed. If you think about it, friendship is a little hard to define with words. You can demonstrate friendship with actions but how do your truly use words to describe it. Well, in Proverbs 18:24 the Bible says, a good friend “sticks closer than a brother.” Proverbs 17:17 says that a real friend “loves at all times.” I can tell you in my case, my friendship with my sons is not only immensely important to me, it is one of the things that defines me as a man. It is easy for me to be friends with my sons because they are men of integrity, men of ethics, wonderful husbands and fathers and men who love Jesus. We respect each other, support each other, encourage each other. I have the true honor of watching them as they interact with their friends, as they display their leadership qualities in their business and as they provide examples for other men and sons to follow. My friendship with my sons extends to their wives whom I love with all my heart. Terrie and I have always believed that if you do the job of a parent right, you will be friends with your children when they become adults. Again, it gives me great joy to know I can call my sons my closest friends and that they are also friends with each other.

So, there you have it. Being a great dad to your son involves a lot of faith, a lot of love, a lot of work and a lot of trust. When you experience the nurse phase, don’t miss it like I did. It will be a time of bonding, a time of wonder as you watch your baby grow and become aware. Remember the king phase is not the “dictator” phase. The king phase is a time of instruction, a time of discipline, an opportunity for you to shape your sons future in a very constructive way. The coach phase is when you let him show his stuff with gentle guidance to keep him focused and on track. It is a time when your son finds his voice and begins to put into practice all the things you have taught him and exemplified for him. And the end reward? Friendship with your son when he reaches manhood. A friendship that continues to gain strength and meaning. A friendship that has eternal implications as you pray for each other, admonish each other, dream for each other.

Again, my thanks to Pastor Brian Tome and the Aggressive Life Podcast for providing me with the motivation to write this post. It has been a time of reflection and self-realization of what a gift from God being a father is.