ROUGHLY THE first 40 weeks of life are spent in our mother’s womb. That is the beginning of a close mother-child relationship, which hopefully the mother is able to build on during the early days, and then the early years of her child’s life.

Fathers do not have the advantage of that deeply physical, instinctive relationship with their children. It needs to be built from the ground up.

That’s why it is good that enlightened companies increasingly give paternity leave as well as maternity leave. Many of us aren’t in the privileged position of enjoying that sort of benefit, but for all fathers it is essential that we make the very important choice to give time right from the be-ginning to be present with our children and develop strong, involved loving relationships with them. We need to bond with them.

About 20 minutes after my son was born, the midwife sat me down and placed my baby son in my lap. Usually, I am a fairly unemotional person, but this was far and away the most powerful and emotional moment of my life.

I had a deep sense of joy and delight in a baby who had achieved very little so far apart from making my wife feel sick for the past nine months. I shall always be grateful to- the midwife who sat me down to hold my child so that I had that experience of bonding. (If there is a Yoruba midwife from Cameroon who was working in Hammersmith in the summer of 1989, do get in touch; I’d love to say thank you).

About 20 minutes after my son was born, the midwife sat me down and placed my baby son in my lap. Usually, I am a fairly unemotional person, but this was far and away the most powerful and emotional moment of my life.

Many voices in the Bible speak recognise that our God also has that powerful sense of bonding with his creatures. The prophet Hosea captures the loving, caring experience of a father: “When Israel was a child, I loved him … It was I who taught Ephraim to walk.” Similar feeling is expressed in Psalm 103, verse 13, which we use at the graveside to comfort grieving families:

“As a father is tender towards his children, so is the Lord tender towards those that fear Him.” ‘Fear’ here is a form of trust; knowing that our lives are at their most secure when we put ourselves under the authority of a loving faithful God. ‘Tender’ may be a word we usually associate with mothers.

I wonder if we realise that God is a tender father, and he calls all fathers to be like that as well. But none of us had a father as perfect as God, our heavenly Father. Maybe our fathers in turn knew only bad memories and ways of behaving from their fathers.

The exhaustion of work, the hurt of racism, the pressure to provide can make fathers bitter and unreasonable.
Ian Wright has described the vicious, destructive cruelty of his father who forced him to face the wall so that he couldn’t watch his beloved Match of the Day.

Some people have seen the Bible as justifying that sort of punitive, even violent treatment of children: ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’.

Certainly, an important and demanding part of fathering is to help our children appreciate the importance of self-control and observing boundaries, but that comes best from fathers who have discovered for themselves that God is a loving father.

In his letters Paul teaches about how we are to relate to each other in families. What he says about fathers is curious,
for whilst he speaks to both husbands and wives, he simply says that children be obedient, and says nothing to others, only that fathers shouldn’t exasperate. It suggests both that he assumed mothers’ care for their children is so spontaneous and natural that it requires no teaching, whereas he knew that fathers could be exasperating!
perhaps by being too ready to criticise, not ready enough to encourage.

So it is important that the New Testament writers retain the original word that Jesus used when talking to God:
‘Abba’, which is like our word ‘Daddy’.

It is a trusting, intimate word. One of his most famous stories was of a father patient- ly longing and waiting for the return of his son who had squandered all his inheritance on prostitutes and gambling. He saw that being a father can be an emotional roller-coaster ride.

Fathers’ Day falls on Sunday, June 20. Even though shops are increasingly using it as an opportunity to find a few more occasions in the year to market cards and gifts, it is unlikely that it will ever match the sentimental bonanza of Mothering Sunday.

But it is important to celebrate it.

That will probably mean celebrating fathers in your own family. It may be an opportunity to help and encourage fa- thers who you know are under pressure. It could be a time to work and pray for reconciliation be-tween fathers and mothers, or between fathers and their children.

It may be an opportunity to help and encourage fathers who you know are under pressure. It could be a time to work and pray for reconciliation be-tween fathers and mothers, or between fathers and their children.

The growing number of children, especially boys, who are growing up without a father in the home to cherish them, encourage them, and give them the discipline of following rules and obeying boundaries, is a growing crisis in our society.

For good or evil, a boy’s first role model is always his father. Can I suggest that every fatther who reads this determines to be a better father than his own father had been. That way our society is sure to grow healthier. There is no greater help towards achieving that than to discover the caring, forgiving, restoring love that God our Father, ‘Abba’, has for each one of us.