Dear Ole Dad, Father’s Day

by Brian Replogle, family leadership specialist (2012) 

All dads remember the day they found out they were going to be dads, and the day their children were born or adopted (as is my case), and while we all have had different experiences surrounding those momentous events I think most of us can agree they are some of the most amazing memories we have.

Equally, we share similar, yet different, memories of our fathers and grandfathers bestowing the “rightsof manhood”, “pull my finger son,” upon us as we grew-up. I personally consider my job as Austin’s father to be the greatest honor and greatest achievement of my existence, and I pray every father shares that sentiment. The unconditional love of a child for their parents is a special treat to us all.

My advice for Father’s Day: Enjoy every moment with your children. Life is hard, life

is fleeting, but life is amazing when we spend quality time with our children doing things we all can enjoy together. Take a moment this father’s day to teach your son(s) and daughter(s) something from your youth that seems left behind; I plan to teach my son to play paper football. In today’s age of video games, social media, and text messaging we have lost the art of personal interaction. By teaching your child to make and play paper football, make or throw a paper airplane (many styles to choose from, you can Google the directions for fancy planes), or a nice game of Nerf basketball we are sharing with our children how “totally-awesome” (I was an 80’s kid) our youth experience was; we are teaching our children to interact one-on-one with others with fun activities, and we are spending valuable moments getting to know each other on a different level while teaching them our values, morals, and expectations of life.

Treasure these moments at every age, before you know it they will be grown and gone and life will pass you by in a blur.

“Spend time with your family and loved ones, for no reason at all but to be

there. You will witness miracles you might otherwise miss forever.” - - Tony Dungy