What a great treat to be the dad of our two great kids.  There's never a dull moment around here. Just this morning, Nicholas told me that he was licking up water off the shower floor right alongside our cat Chloe.  And yesterday, Maddox ran into to our room early in the morning and as she was jumping in the air onto my back, she yelled "let's play sandwich - I'm lettuce!" 

Being a dad is a great honor and carries a great responsibility.  

I had a couple of fathers day thoughts I wanted to pass along.   They stem from a comment a friend of ours made while eating at McCalister's Deli this week.  Out of the blue he asked, "how much of life do you think is marketing?"  Then he added, "because there are signs everywhere about McCalister's famous tea (which there was) and personally, I think the tea is just okay."  

Do you ever notice how marketing tells us what to think?  And have you ever realized how our culture sometimes buys into these thoughts - whether they are right or wrong?

Well this week, I ran into several examples where companies are trying to convince our society that Fathers are not the men that God created them to be (leaders of our homes and God's representative between our families and Himself).  Instead, companies are trying to shape us to view fathers as dumbed-down idiots somewhere between Homer Simpson and Larry the Cable Guy.

Example #1:

I go to the card store to pick out a card for my dad for Fathers Day and leave having bought a generic "nothing written in it" card.  The reason?  Every Fathers Day card I found at the store made dads look like morons.  By the text on the cards, you'd think all dads' first loves were golf, fishing, work, or the remote. And all of the cards made dads to look like a doofus in each of these categories.

Example #2:

Kristin gave the kids a special treat yesterday and let them watch a vintage episode of Tom and Jerry on TV.  The first commercial that came on (this was the Cartoon Network) had kids playing with toys when their dad joined in their make-believe world, making sound effects and playing along. His kids all rolled their eyes at him, made fun of him and the dad was standing there looking like a nincompoop.  The second commercial followed suit and the channel was changed.  Not the example of Fathers we want around here.

Last Example:

We grab a quick lunch at McDonald's  while out running errands (again, a special treat for the kids).  On all of our cups were pictures of future olympians and a saying to go by their picture.  We all had the same athlete on our cup and here is what the caption said (paraphrased):

Touching, but where is dad?  Is it just understood that dads are not in the picture?  Are we a bunch of dummies that just play golf, fish and go to work?  Do we not train our kids and do they not honor us as their leaders and representatives to God?

Well this Fathers Day, I want to send a big Hat Tip to several friends who are all great dads. These guys are leading their families in the ways of the Lord.  They are catechizing their children.  They are hard workers, but spending most of their energy to the benefit of their families.

They're certainly not incompetent.  They're not lazy.  And they're not self-centered.  These guys are working to live up to their calling articulated by God himself in Deuteronomy 6.  They would all tell you that they struggle with sin, but in midst of their struggles, they appear to be working toward becoming the dads their families need them to be. 

I'm not sure how it would sell, but I'd love to see something like that on a Hallmark card or a McDonald's cup!