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The Importance of Actively Participating Father's



Hey everyone!  This week we are talking about the important roles that father’s play in the home.  There are so many statistics that back up the importance of an actively participating father in the home.  Father’s do much more than provide financial support to the family.  Below is an image I borrowed from fatherhood.org explaining the statistics of fatherless homes:





If these statistics don’t impress on you enough the importance of father’s in your home, then I don’t know what will.

According to The Huffington Post, they say that, “Girls will look for men who hold the patterns of good old dad, for after all, they know how "to do that." Therefore, if father was kind, loving, and gentle, they will reach for those characteristics in men. Girls will look for, in others, what they have experienced and become familiar with in childhood.” 

They also explain that, “Boys on the other hand, will model themselves after their fathers. They will look for their father's approval in everything they do, and copy those behaviors that they recognize as both successful and familiar. Thus, if dad was abusive, controlling, and dominating, those will be the patterns that their sons will imitate and emulate. However, if father is loving, kind, supportive, and protective, boys will want to be that.”

Father’s presence (and type of) in the home determines much of how the children will turn out.  Girls will seek the kind of man that their father was (good or bad) and boys will seek to emulate the kind of father they had (good or bad) which is always unintentional but there is so much research to support that.

Financial issues can be a tough part of every marriage.  A lot of families these days have both spouses/parents working to help support the family.  We talked about a case in class where both the husband and the wife went to work. The husband worked 40+ hours a week and the woman worked 32+ hours a week.  With the wife going back to work, there were extra transportation costs, childcare costs, food costs, new clothing costs, recreation for the kids costs, and so much more.   This couple hired an accountant to see how much they were actually making with the wife going back to work with the added expenditures:

   $42,000/year (husband’s salary)
+ $22,000/ year (wife’s salary)
   $40,500/ year (combined salary)

When I learned this, I was shocked.  Even with the wife working an almost full-time job, with all of the extra expenses, they were making LESS than they were before she went back to work.  It may be a good activity to sit down with your spouse and map out your expenses to see if it is beneficial for your family to be working or if it would benefit your family more to stay home with the children.

Marvin J. Ashton gives a wonderful talk entitled, “One for the Money”:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2007/09/one-for-the-money?lang=eng

I love this talk because he gives 12 tips to help families improve financial management.  They are as follows:

1.       Teach family members early the importance of working and earning.
2.       Teach children to make money decisions in keeping with their capacities to comprehend.
3.       Teach each family member to contribute to the total family welfare.
4.       Teach family members that paying financial obligations promptly is part of integrity and honesty development.
5.       Learn to manage money before it manages you.
6.       Learn self-discipline and self-restraint in money matters.
7.       Use a budget.
8.       Make education a continuing process.
9.       Work toward home ownership.
10.   Appropriately involve yourself in an insurance program.
11.   Strive to understand and cope with existing inflation.
12.   Appropriately involve yourself in a food storage program.

These tips can help enrich our financial lives in our families if we implement them. 

Father’s do so much for the family, and I am so grateful for a father who has been the most incredible example to me and one who has helped shape me into the person I am.  He has sacrificed so much for my family and I and he has been there every step of the way.  My dad means the world to me.  Because of the man that my dad is, he has helped me set my standards high for those I date.  I look forward to the day when I will have a husband who helps support and raise children to be the best that they can be, just like my dad did. 



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