The Enduring Father: What is a Father’s Role in the Family?

Updated: Jul 6

There is a cultural war invading the home, a war attacking the family unit by diminishing the father's role in the household. The battle is fought amongst each family. The choice must be made to stand your ground and endure as a family for generations or to concede to the wishes of a toxic culture that doesn't have your family's best wishes at heart.

But what is the Father's Role in the Family? This question echoes across cultures, with a remarkably consistent answer. In nearly every society, the father's role is defined by three primary tasks: protector, provider, and disciplinarian. These tasks encapsulate the essence of a father- "A man who lovingly invests in his children, instructing them towards maturity at every stage of life." The family is a living, breathing unit, and the father's role is to nurture and sustain it, ensuring its productivity and longevity.

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Certain people in the culture will attempt to tell you, "You get to decide what type of father you will be based on your experience and circumstances." This may be true if it falls under the time-tested role of the father as protector, provider, and disciplinarian. How you do these things can vary, but a father does do these things within the family; it is his role!

Let's dig deeper!

The Father's Role: The Three Pillars

Traditionally, the Father's role is seen merely physically; I will not approach this in this way. The Father's role is to be holistic, addressing the family's physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. All are necessary to be genuinely nurtured and tended to. You wouldn't plant a garden without weeding it, feeding it, watering it, and enjoying it, would you?

The Father's Pillars: Protection, Provision, Discipline

The father's role is the three enduring pillars that, if carried well, will uphold the family unit for generations to come. Clearly defined roles benefit any organization, including the family unit. When roles are left undefined, the organization breaks down and is left to fend for itself. The family is far too important to leave unprotected and undefined. The Father must uphold the family unity with the three pillars: Protector, Provider, and Disciplinarian.

Protector

Some will say that the mother's role (nurturer) is to protect the child's emotions. Yes! It is her role, but it is also the father's role. You wouldn't tell me that when the children are at home or at the store with mom, she doesn't care for their physical protection, right? My wife is consistently diligent and watchful over our children when they are at the store (especially when she is alone with them). It is good that she is; she should be!

I use this to say that mothers are concerned with physical, emotional, and spiritual protection. So why isn't this included in the role of the father? Yes, a father's role is to protect the physical well-being of his spouse and the children. He is the broad-shouldered man who steps in, his spidey senses tingle, and says, DANGER! But it must be the same for the emotional and spiritual as for the physical.

What does it mean to protect in the emotional and spiritual sense? It means to sense danger and act! Just as you wouldn't let your children play on a highway, you wouldn't let your loved ones play in areas where there could be lasting emotional or spiritual damage. Remove your family from toxic or life-taking situations and put them in life-giving situations. Also, the father must instruct his family on dealing with negative emotional and spiritual situations.

The father is to be proactive in his protection, not just reactive. In the physical sense, this means that a father instructs a child not to touch a hot pan, to pet a dog without permission, and to cross a street without looking. In the emotional sense, this means instructing how to treat others, what to do when they are being treated badly, and not giving away your heart to those they barely know. In the spiritual sense, it means teaching them the truth, helping them discern truth from lies, and giving them a healthy appetite for God.

To protect them physically is to keep the children from dangerous physical circumstances and instruct them on what is a dangerous physical circumstance.
To protect them emotionally is to keep the children from emotional danger and instruct them on emotional dangers and the proper protection from them.
To protect them spiritually means keeping the children from spiritual falsehood by putting them in suitable environments and diligently guarding the truth in their hearts.

Provider

Fatherly provision is not just "Bringing home the bacon." In most circumstances, it includes financial substance, but it is certainly not only "bacon." Wealth is not restricted to finances, it is also: human, intellectual, social, and spiritual. The father is to be the primary source of provision in all five areas of wealth: human, intellectual, social, financial, and spiritual.

Specifically, within the members of the family unit, the father's role is to provide for their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. To feed them a healthy diet and a safe environment promoting healthy growth.

To provide physically is to bring home money that will go to care for the physical needs of the home.
To provide emotionally is to be the enduring rock that supports the emotional health of the home. To be the consistantly loving father that the children can come to not just to feel safe but to be supported.
To provide spiritually is to be the model image of the one they want their children to become in characteristic. To provide a living example of faith and faithfulness to them.

Disciplinarian

In today's culture, we think of chastisement when we hear the word discipline. This is not the picture of the father as a disciplinarian. Discipline is the development of self-control. Webster says it's "training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character." The father's role is one of instruction, which moves children toward maturity at every stage of life.

Sadly, in our culture, we see the fruit of a fatherless culture. Generations of undisciplined children are now assuming the roles of adults, though they still act like children. This is largely because the father's role as disciplinarian has been diminished and thrown out the window.

To discipline physically is to instruct the children towards maturity as they are taught to control their bodies in the negative sense and use them in the positive sense (according to your family values).
To discipline emotionally is to instruct the children towards maturity as they are taught to control their emotions. Not acting out of their feelings but out of what is true.
To discipline spiritually is to instruct the children toward maturity. They are taught to lead disciplined lives that pursue truth, hold to the truth, act out of truth, and guard the truth.

A Father Tends and Keeps

I am a gardener. I enjoy playing in the dirt, tending to the plants, keeping them from harm, and being productive. The family is a living, breathing unit, and the father's role is to nurture and sustain it, ensuring its productivity and longevity. The father's role in the family is just like the gardener's role in the garden.

His work isn't done when things are prepared and planted. That's actually when his real work begins. The father's role is to be the enduring rock of the family unit that nurtures and sustains it through protection, provision, and discipline. This takes an attitude of patience and selflessness. Knowing that this family is not about you but the legacy you and your wife leave behind in their children and grandchildren. A Father tends and keeps or nurtures and sustains the family through diligent protection, provision, and discipline.

Conclusion

What an INCREDIBLE responsibility! Fathers have a HUGE role to fulfill in the family and big shoes to fill! Look at your life, look around; do you see the impact fathers have on the development of their children? You can see it in the positive fruit in some and the blaring lack of fruit in others (maturity and values). Where are you at as a father? Are you fulfilling your role? Are you fighting the war? How far are you currently in your journey as a father from being the one you want your sons to emulate and your daughters to marry? That's a big question with enormous consequences! How much will your current state of fatherhood cost your family in the long run?

TRAVISDEAN-MAXEY