Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know by Dr. Meg Meeker

Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know
by Dr. Meg Meeker
Ballantine Books
0345499395

As you may or may not know, we recently welcomed a new baby girl to our family. I'm also the first to admit that I don't know the first thing about girls. Never have. In raising our daughter, I need whatever help I can get.

I heard about Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know via Dave Ramsey's recommended reading list. Reading it was an eye-opening experience for me. I told my wife that it made me want to lock up all our kids (girls and boys) until they were thirty. There are a lot of scary, scary things in the world. It's a predatory society in which we live. And I am only partly talking about people deliberately trying to harm your daughter. But that's far from everything. On top of the obvious threats, it's clear that the world does not have the best interests of your child in mind. Kids are exposed to adulthood far too early. They play grown-up before they can even begin to understand what that means.

While I don't promote living in a constant state of paranoia, I really don't promote naivety. Kids--yes, even teens--are not grown ups. They need guidance. They need protection. Providing these things are the job of the parent. If the parent doesn't, someone else will. Kids will look to celebrities, friends, other parents, Victoria's Secret, and any number of other sources to decide what adulthood is. We can't trust those sources. And we can't expect politicians (despite their banner waving) or teachers to raise our kids. They can't. And it's not their job.

There's really too much for me to cover in any sort of detail. The table of contents hits the big points:

1. You Are the Most Important Man in Her Life
2. She Needs a Hero
3. You Are Her First Love
4. Teach Her Humility
5. Protect Her, Defend Her
6. Pragmatism and Grit: Two of Your Greatest Assets
7. Be the Man You Want Her to Marry
8. Teach Her Who God Is
9. Teach Her to Fight
10. Keep Her Connected

Raising kids is a big task. It cannot be done with passivity. Man up. Yeah...I said that.

And God help the kid that tries to date my baby girl.

Goals Twenty-Ten

I welcome 2010. I'm going to own 2010. I think it's going to be a good year.

Like so many others at this time of year, I'm putting together some goals for the future. Goals have been a popular subject on the Dave Ramsey show recently. You can read/listen to a recent call about goal setting here. It was a good call. Dave identified several categories for goal setting: Career, Financial, Spiritual, Intellectual, Physical, and Family. I've given these some thought and here's my initial list. I'll leave them open to ongoing review.

Career

• Do something with those picture books I've written. Write that cover letter. Send it out. That fits under Career, right?.

Financial

• Tweak our envelope system. Already done.
• Bump up college savings.
• Replenish our savings (just bought a new HVAC system for the house...ouch).
• Work on long range savings (vacation, car, etc).

Spiritual

• Finish this read-through of the Bible.

Intellectual

• Dig into my non-fiction reading list. At least one per month. Probably two with some fiction thrown in.

Physical

• Run a local 5k trail run in the spring.
• Put on another 10-15 pounds.

Family

• Family/Couples Devotions. Also falls under Spiritual
• Family Vacation!

A less tangible goal for the year would be to pursue my strengths. That is, spend less time worrying about my weaknesses and, instead, invest more into what I do well. That doesn't mean I'll slack off on things I don't enjoy activities where I don't feel gifted. I just not worry about it as much. God gave me my strengths for a reason.

The real question, of course, is whether I'll follow through with this goals.

Soul Searching

I've been doing some soul searching recently.Maybe it's the New Year. Maybe it's our new baby girl. Whatever it is, I've been asking myself a lot of questions.

1. What am doing?
2. Where am I going?
3. Is this what I want to be doing?
4. Is this where I want to go?

Conveniently, these questions have fit in well with a couple other outside influences. I've been reading Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival by Joe Simpson. I may review it later but, related to this post, the book references a quotation:

All men dream: but not equally, Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.

T.E. Lawrence from The Seven Pillars of Wisdom

It's not dreams that make the dreamers dangerous. No, it's the action. It's making those dreams real that's dangerous. I've been dreaming for, well, forever, but I haven't necessarily been dangerous. I need me some danger. I need to put legs on my dreams.

The second thing I've read recently came from an unlikely place. There's a site dedicated to, well, James Bond. Yes, 007. And, yes, I check the site out periodically. Anyway, there was a posting about finding your mission. Not necessarily infiltrating a villain's island hideout (sign me up) but identifying and pursuing you're own mission. Making the sacrifices for the greater reward. Always moving toward the goal. Huh? Life by 007.

I believe we achieve exactly what we set out for. It's all nicey-nice to set goals and say you're doing something but, if those dream just sit there in your head (or even on a blog) and you're comfortable where you are, you're not really trying. If, you set out for more of the same, you'll almost certainly achieve it. Pursue those goals...well...that's something different altogether.

To that end, I'm working on my goals for 2010. I see it being a big year. Huge.