“There are certain roles that only a woman can fulfill, just like there are certain roles that only a man can fulfill.”
God designed men and women with different strengths and weaknesses. It’s important for both father and mother to exercise their God-given strengths in the context of the family, but what happens if one of the parents is not present?
Ron Deal from Family Life Blended discusses the vital role fathers play in raising a family.
“I’m not saying it’s one over the other, I’m saying that God put us in partnership for a reason because we each bring something to the table that makes the whole united system much stronger.”
Ron tells a story about an area of Africa that noticed that the population of young elephants were behaving strangely.
“These young bull elephants were beating up on other animals and they were doing things that were outside of their normal ecosystem in terms of their activity and behavior.”
Things got so bad they were even becoming a threat to the human beings living in and around them.
Years earlier, the older elephants had been moved to a different location and no longer lived with the younger elephants. Eventually, they decided to bring the older elephants back to see what would happen.
“All they did was just bring back the older, male elephants and all the problems just went away because the elephants started policing the younger ones, they started whipping them into shape.”
The older elephants were able to keep the younger elephants in check. The same can be said for humans. When a male authority figure is not a part of a family, children can have a better chance of getting out of control.
“It seems to me that there is a strength and power there, that men are able to set boundaries and to do so with firmness that is so important.”
Ron is a father of three boys and he knows that they have a tendency to be disrespectful to their mother when he isn’t around.
“It was amazing how I could go on a speaking trip to a church on a weekend and all of the sudden one of those boys would act out and challenge mom in ways they didn’t normally challenge.”
If Ron couldn’t cure the behavior over the phone, when he got back he would firmly tell his son to be more respectful to his mother.
“That simple act of my presence would pull everything back in line. Without me being able to come alongside and support my wife, things just run amok.”
