My father didn’t tell me how to live. He lived, and let me watch him do it.

Clarence Budington Kelland

Dear Dads:

Just wanted to let you know that there has never been a time in our history when you are needed more.

• In this country, 24 million children are being raised without you in the home.
• Your absence in the home is a greater predictor for negative outcomes in children than is poverty.
• Poor grades, low self-esteem, and gang-association increase exponentially when you are not raising your children.

Studies increasingly show that your direct, focused involvement in the lives of your kids will be one of the biggest factors in their success as well-adjusted adults.

So when you are at home, please be at home.

• Kids spell love t-i-m-e. Quality and quantity of time matter.
• Pay attention to the overall atmosphere of your home. Take control of any drift toward chaos or disharmony.
• Love your wife.

Most important, kids need dads who need God. This will always be true. Be the dad who walks with God and plants his family in that other God-ordained family called the church.

You faithful, hardworking fathers, some of you with your own less-than-stellar dads, are driving pylons of faith deep in the Word and prayer. You are creating strong legacies for the children God has given you. We look at your devotion with enormous admiration and appreciation.

To those of you who have fostered, or adopted, or taken in the children of dysfunctional family members, or who live as intentional role models for children without dads in the home, we honor you from the bottom of our hearts.

 We need you, we love you, we pray for you.