Fatherhood and Rewards

Cleaned from the live recording. Lightly edited for reading.

Question: How necessary is it for a father to have an anchor?

*Minister Washington asked: you are the support system, the provider, the protector. The children and the mothers look to the father. But is he doing all of this on his own? A lot of men try to carry the weight of the world with no anchor.*

Good morning. What a potent question.

It's necessary for a father to have an anchor. Someone or something that brings stability to his life and keeps him from drifting too far down any river, whether it's morally or educationally. Sometimes I watch some of those Asian shows, and you see the pressure there is to perform educationally. In certain cultures there's a pressure to conform to certain spiritual standards, or educational standards, or an emotional or moral mark.

First and foremost, my anchor spiritually is God. But beside that, God works through people. I have Apostle Ellsworth Williams and Apostle Carmen Williams as anchors, as spiritual parents. And a beautiful thing, my biological father is also a Christian and an elder in his local church.

I remember a time we had a particular issue with one of my sons, and my biological father was the one that had to sit down with me and him and help to sort it out. It was sorted out within 24 hours, I think. It worked because my father was, and is, an anchor in my life.

My father was there

My mother died early. So when persons are celebrating Mother's Day, I celebrate both days for my father, because he was there. My mother died at the age of 34. That's thirty-something years now, and he's been there all the time with us. A single parent, with no other female in the house other than my sisters after my mother died. So when I speak about fathers, and the pain and the heartaches and the struggles, I know what it is. I experienced it.

Even in that, you could see some stuff that needed to be worked on. My father worked very hard, and I was the type of young man who was emotionally withdrawn. Sometimes we blame it on parents, but when I grew up I realized I didn't make it easy for my father, because he may have grown up that way too. I was a loner, an introvert. In my shell, in my room by myself. That was the best time of my life, when nobody's around.

Check in with me

I think it was last week, I felt I needed to tell my children something, but only two of them were at home. I told my big son after, and I still need to tell another son. I said to them, "When you guys marry, your father wants to see you every month. I want to hear from y'all every month. I want y'all to hear me now. If you live in another country, I don't care where you are living, take a ticket, or come video call me. I want to see y'all. I want to hear from my children."

I felt it was necessary for me to say that to them. I don't want a relationship where if we don't see you for three months, six months, eight months, ten months, I assume everything is all right. I want you to know that I want you in my life. And I didn't leave that for assumption, even though they know that about me. I told them, even if I get cranky and old and fret with y'all this week, call me the next week. Put that aside, and irrespective of anything, check in.

It tends to be a foregone conclusion when it comes to the mother. But I felt as a father, there are things that we don't tell our children. Especially the emotional part. I'm big on the spiritual part. We're big on the education part. We invest money in lessons, university, wherever. But many times they don't get to know us. How we feel about matters. How we feel about them.

It happens in the earlier part of their life. They come and jump on daddy, and daddy holds them and walks around with them. But as they grow and go into the world of work and further education, they tend to gravitate more to friends and colleagues. I just want them to know that daddy has expectations. And my expectation is that no matter where you find yourself in this world, check home with me. Just let me hear your voice.

That may look like it's just emotional, but to me that's one of the biggest spiritual inputs, or even educational inputs, you can leave in a child. My father loves me. My father longs for my attention, craves my presence.

And to me it gives them a very good example of the Father, our heavenly Father. That we can come to Him. He's not tired of us. We may mess up, but Daddy still wants to hear from me. He might fret a little with me, but He still wants me to check in. He lets me know up front: I might be a little scratchy with you, I might fret with you on something, we may not see eye to eye on something, but check in. I love you.

The prodigal son: his father ran

That brings back the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). To me, he had that type of input in his life, that he was able to go and ask the father for his portion of the family estate. He went and he enjoyed life, and found himself in a terrible place. But because that foundation was laid, daddy loves me, daddy wants to know where I am, he couldn't just live his life with daddy not knowing where he was. That was uncomfortable. Even while he was enjoying the world, it was uncomfortable to him that he's out here and his father doesn't know what's happening to him.

Yes, he was ashamed. But I know I've had interactions with daddy. Many times we didn't see eye to eye, but I could still come to him. He doesn't ridicule me. He doesn't kill me. I may not like what he says from time to time. He hits home hard and touches some areas in my life that I don't really want him to touch.

Because sometimes as fathers we go beyond boundaries. They're adults now, and no matter what happens we still treat them as our child. We're not cognizant of the fact that this is an adult now, with their own family. So sometimes we do go and touch things.

But with this young man, we saw that he was able to go back home. And one of the things that stood out in the story Jesus told is that his father ran to him (Luke 15:20). His father did not sit down and say, "Look, stupidness. He destroyed his life, he messed up his life, and now he's coming back." His father ran to him.

That's one of the things I'm trying to convey in my children's lives. Right now there's physical interaction, physical running. They can always come. But the time is coming when it may not be physical, because they can't just come back home. They may be living in Germany or Switzerland or the US. But they can pick up the phone, and emotionally, psychologically, the bond can be there. So right now I've already started running to them, letting them know. You already start feeling my hugs. We do that a lot.

The first hug

I remember the first time my father hugged me. It was my 21st birthday, or my 18th birthday, and I felt awkward. I look back now, and it's not that something was wrong with him. Because of the type of person I was, I didn't make things easy. I wasn't a bad child, but I was a very reserved child.

So now we work that with ours. Give me a hug. And it's not only the mother that does that. I do it too, with every one of them. The little one now, he was the very reserved one, and now he comes to his mother and says, "Give me a hug. Give me a kiss." Because when we talk about investment, we've laid the groundwork. I'm going to stop there for now.

Question: A favorite moment of being a dad

As Minister Boris said, there's so much. When they're young, you're so excited when you come home, and they all want to see you. I remember holding them in my arms, coming home, holding them and just walking in the yard to the back with them, talking.

But in this season, at this juncture of their life, let me give you the first one. I remember we were standing in the kitchen around the island, and the two big ones brought up oral sex. The mother nearly fainted. "What's the topic? What are you talking about?" She tried to shut them down. I said, "No, let us listen to them."

This was a conversation that came up among their peers, and they felt comfortable to come home and continue the conversation with us. And we were able to hear their point of view, but also share our point of view and help to shape them.

Laughter in the house

Moments like the teasing, the talking, the whole group around, and we're talking foolishness and laughing with one another. To me, when I can hear laughter in my home, you cherish it. Even if it's sometimes at an inconvenient time, like 1:00 in the morning. Because when it's not there, it makes the house feel empty.

Those times when we can sit as a family and talk and discuss things. Many families, especially Christian families, when they sit together it's to do Bible study, devotion. Other than that, there isn't anything there. But I love when we can sit and talk, and they come with discussions on different things, and they're there. You hear their heart. You joke. Like your daughter and the young man that's watching her. Those are the kinds of things where you say to yourself, I can see myself doing this at 70. This will not get stale.

My sons will come and ask questions. Maybe the Bible, maybe life. You're able to talk about university, current affairs. It's not just school, not just Bible, but girlfriend, or boyfriend if it's the girl. You're able to throw it out there and share your expectations.

Share your expectations

That's one of the things I started to do early: share my expectations. So sometimes you hear them say about a girlfriend, "I'm not ready for that, maybe until I marry." Okay, I'm listening to you. I'm hearing you. But how did they come up with that? Because you shared your expectations.

Some of my expectations are that you grow up, you go to university, get your first degree, your masters, and you get married to somebody nice. So indirectly you're teaching them the goals. You're setting goals without making it rigid.

Here's a fun one for me. I love when they're sitting around and my wife comes, and I hold her and give her a nice juicy kiss. The other day my daughter came around and said something, and I said, "We're working on a daughter. You don't want a sister?" She said, "Me, I'm the only girl in this house." But it's happy. Those are happy moments. You teach your family.

There are certain things our parents would never talk to us about. It was just taboo. So if a boy touched you, or somebody touched you inappropriately, you didn't know how to come home and talk. If a young man or a young woman said something or did something to you, you didn't know how to come home and say, "Daddy, this happened and I didn't know how to respond." We create the environment where they see love in action.

Question: The ideal Father's Day gift

*Minister Washington: Apostle, I know you're a man that don't play with regards to certain things.*

I told my children, right now we're making investments. And I'm not going to be like the other parents who say, once my children grow up and do well, "I'm happy for you, that's why we made this investment." I'm looking for a reward. The reward in terms of you becoming somebody of stature in society, in whichever sphere. I'm going to enjoy that.

Like Elder Washington said, Father's Day, I guess because of our humble upbringing, it's not too fussy for us. But my thing with it, I would say to my children, remember your mother and I on trips. When you start to work for the money, remember us. I know you'll have your family, but remember us.

There are places we want to go, like Italy and Greece and Switzerland. I had a little camel ride the other day. I'd love to do that some other way, where it's not just going in a circle at an exhibition. Where you really go on holiday. The Caribbean Sea, or the Maldives, in a canoe with a glass bottom where you can see everything. You go snorkeling. So you guys are hearing us, right?

Don't buy us tools. We buy tools just to buy tools. Even though we bought one yesterday, if this one looks a little different, we're going to buy it. So that's not really a gift for us. As Elder Washington said, we want to build memories. To me, adventure. Men love adventure. Give us a package where we go on a mountain hike, some trekking. Something that's fun for us, that we can come back and sit back and say, "My daughter, my son sent me on a five-day Caribbean cruise." I'm just putting it out there.