Better To Be the "Faithful Dad" than "Cool Dad"

 I think all of us, to some degree, struggle with being "people pleasers". Now on one hand, it's easy to question, "What's wrong with that? We ought not to be striving to be despised and hated, should we?" Certainly not, but most people recognize that there's a line that we cross when our attempts to gain approval in the eyes of others causes us to do morally dubious things or when our change betrays who we fundamentally are or what we believe.

I thought about this as I read an article about booze-serving parents being held accountable for a tragic alcohol-fueled accident where a teenager died. Now, I hear stories of instances where parents serve their child wine for religious or traditional reasons, or even serve alcohol in a controlled environment to their child to teach them a lesson (which sometimes backfires). The pending criminal case wasn't either of those situations, but rather a situation where they were providing the booze for a teenage party.

Now even if there's a tinge of stupid logic along the lines of, "Junior's going to get tanked with his friends anyway, so I might as well serve them alcohol here at the house so they can enjoy it responsibly," the decision to serve booze to your kid and his friends really does reek of a failure to say 'no', likely driven by a fear of being the "anal-retentive, non-understanding uncool parent" or desire to be the "hip parent".

Sarah and I once read parts of the book "How Children Raise Parents" by Dan Allender. It was a pretty good book, and what I remember most vividly was that the books premise that your children are constantly (often silently) asking two underlying questions:

1. "Am I loved?"
   
2. "Can I get my way?"
   

The correct parental response is to the first is constant, strong and resounding "Yes".  The correct response to the second is a gentle and loving "No," specifically when those desires are in conflict, as they often are with young kids, with the heart of God which we will forever seek to follow.

The voice I want to hear from Daniel and Sophia is not so much "You're a cool dad" - or even "You were a great dad" when they're older, though I certainly wouldn't mind that.  I think the most assuring words will come from the Lord if and when He tells me "Well done, good and faithful servant.  You were a faithful and loving father to your children."