How does one learn to be a father? There really isn’t a “father training school” per se. Like so many things in life, it mostly happens by observation and imitation. Some people are blessed with great fathers, uncles, or other male role models, while others do not have this advantage.  And for good or for bad, our views of God are often shaped by our earthly father.

Joy and I had very different childhoods. My father was both brilliant and abusive. He only had an eighth-grade education, but it seemed there wasn’t a job he could be hired for and, in fairly short order, be in a supervisory position. He ran things well. I learned from him that I could generally accomplish almost anything I put my mind to. Those are important skills for a boy to learn, and I am grateful to my dad for that. In many other fatherly roles, however, his influence was not always helpful. Of course I loved my dad, and always wished our relationship could be better, but sadly, it never was.

Sons and daughters also learn about relationships from their fathers and, of course, their mothers. However, there are some things a son learns mainly from his father, like how to be a husband and father. How should a man treat his wife, his sons, his daughters, and his extended family? Observing him shapes and informs boys how to treat their future wives and other women in their lives. The father teaches daughters what to expect from their future husbands. My father was never faithful to my mother. He would move out and live with other women from time to time – and then return expecting my mother and his six kids to be happy when he did so. He was emotionally and physically abusive to my mother, and believe me, sons are not happy to see their mother cry. He abused his children too, physically and emotionally. He was also an atheist, which may have given him, in his mind, permission to treat others badly, because there was no one he would have to ultimately answer to. They divorced when I was in my early teens, and I only saw my dad a few times after that. He wanted me as the oldest to go with him, and I refused. I was a rather angry young man, the oldest of six, and my divorced mother was forced to work two jobs and raise us on her own the best she could.

I met Joy when I was 15. Three years later, we married, and three years after that, our son was born. She says she could hardly believe the hospital was sending this very tiny child home with us. After all, how much did we know about baby care? NOTHING –but we learned, somehow, as most parents do. As our son got older, Joy realized we had the responsibility of having to teach him truth about life and God, and she asked God to reveal Himself more clearly to her. For people raised in a church setting, at some point they often need to investigate and make the faith their own. That was her experience, but she also became all too aware that I was not a believer and that something had to be done about that. The short story is that I did become a believer in pretty short order, but what sort of husband and father I’d be was still largely unknown. At that point, I had two central role models for manhood—my father, who was self-centered and abusive, and my father-in-law, who was quite different. I would often find myself asking the question, what would my father do – and then doing the opposite. But when I asked myself what my father-in-law, Vaughn, would do, I tended to go in that direction as best I could. No human being is perfect, but my father-in-law was faithfully married to his wife for 64 years until he went home to be with the Lord. I learned how to be a husband and father to our children through my relationship with Vaughn and other men in our home church. Joy and I will be married 54 years this September. It is difficult in a short piece like this to explain the importance of a godly male mentor in a young man’s life.

Some years ago – early 1990s – Joy wrote an essay directed at the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ view of God, particularly the way they were taught to relate to Him. They are not taught that God is their loving father, Abba, but taught of a god who is a rather unloving, detached “father” who keeps his overburdened “children” at arm’s length and only answers to his proper name. And they best not ever step out of line. That is why they call their God Jehovah instead of Father, while Christians are encouraged to refer to God as their loving Father. (Galatians 4:4-6) She used her relationship with her father to provide a glimpse of what our relationship with our Heavenly Father should be like. In it, we have a glimpse of Joy’s dad, who taught me how to be a husband and father.

Jehovah’s Witnesses often argue that they are the only true Christians, because they are the only ones who know and use God’s proper name, Jehovah. Of course, the counterargument could be made that God’s proper name is NOT Jehovah at all, but YHWH, but this essay was an online response I gave to the JW charge that the churches disrespect God by not calling on him by His name…

My dad’s name is Vaughn. It is a great name, and I hope that all revere the man behind the name. But I don’t call my dad “Vaughn.” I call him “dad,” and have done so since my earliest infancy. I have never even thought about calling him Vaughn because I have always sensed that would not be an expression of honor or respect coming from me, but perhaps even an expression of dishonor.

Now that does not mean that other people outside the family would be insulting him to call him by his name. In fact, outsiders do not have the right to call him “dad” as I do. They would be presuming upon a relationship that they do not possess to call him “dad” or “Daddy.” So, he has been called different things by “outsiders.” To some, neighbors and friends, he might be referred to as “Vaughn.” To others, he is “Mr. Nielsen.” Still others might have referred to him as “the boss.” But I had a special relationship to him, so I never referred to him as “the boss,” with all of the intrinsic insecurity that title suggests. He was, and is, my dad. I am sure there were prettier little girls than me and smarter girls, too, and some were perhaps better behaved. but I was my daddy’s little girl. Such is the wonderful nature of family relationships, to be loved for who you are rather than what qualities you possess or what you may do. And such is the nature of daddies.

In thinking about this, I don’t think the name “Vaughn” was heard too much from the kids in our house, although, of course, all seven kids knew my dad’s name. We were his kids. We just called him “dad.” That is what we were taught to call him, and we never considered calling him anything else. We certainly never would have imagined addressing him by his name. And even in discussing him among ourselves, we still did not use his name. It was, “Where is dad?” Or, “I’m gonna tell dad on you.” What would be considered disrespectful familiarity to an outsider was our very birthright. He was our protector, provider, and our disciplinarian, but we belonged to him, and he loved us deeply, beyond any doubt.

This, of course, does not imply that it would be wrong for me to ever refer to my dad as “Vaughn” when speaking to others about him. There are appropriate times to do so, such as this essay. “My dad’s name is Vaughn” is an appropriate statement in the third person.

Funny thing is, my dad cannot see the passage of time in his little girl, it seems to me. He hasn’t seemed to notice the grey hair I have acquired, nor gives any attention to my reading glasses. He still calls me by the same pet name he has always used of me and which shall never be breathed in this forum by me (you can use your imagination as to what horrible appellation my dad might have assigned to his youngest daughter). For my part, I still call him “daddy.” Expressions of familial love … terms of endearment.

But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order that He might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons, and because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:4-6)Ω

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