Coming Home

"Mom, may I stay up until nine o'clock tonight?"

"Your father's right here—why are you asking me that question?"

"Oh, OK. Dad, may I stay up..."

This kind of interchange is still occasionally heard in our house even though we have been working quite a while at the business of living out our proper roles in the home.

My role is to lead, to set the policies by which my family operates and to see that they are carried out. My wife's role is to honor and affirm my leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts. One of the implications of this role assignment is that when I am present I make the decisions for the family, particularly if they involve some modification or clarification of an existing family policy—like bedtimes.

The challenge in implementing this arrangement in most of our homes, of course, is that with the husband gone most of the day the wife is the direct supervisor of the children most of the time. She is the one who must make judgment calls all day long to interpret policy, to regulate sibling interactions, to maintain order and peace in the home. (This is even true when the husband works in the home since he is preoccupied with his work or may be coming and going throughout the day.) The absentee father is the greatest challenge to restoring our families to godly ways of living.

When the husband comes home he enters a world in which his wife has been the executive power for hours on end. A two-pronged inertia then takes its toll on the God-given roles of the husband and wife. First, she tends to continue in the groove she has been in all day, directing and providing discipline for the children; and the children tend, in turn, to continue to relate to their mother as the authority figure, seeking her out for decisions and for mediation of conflicts.

Second, the father remains in his groove. He has not been supervising kids; he has had lots of other responsibilities on his mind. As a matter of fact, the burden of these other concerns often leaves him preoccupied and emotionally drained. The last thing he feels like doing is jumping into the role of family executive and taking up the burden that necessarily entails. The result is often that the woman remains at the helm, however much she and her mate agree as to the need for him to be the leader of the home.

We discussed previously one way to help compensate for the absence of the father through the best hours of most days: the Assignment and Report System in which the dad leaves his wife and children with assignments to carry out in his absence and then hears a progress report when he returns to the house later in the day. This technique establishes the father as the authority, even in his absence, and the mother functions as his assistant, carrying out his plans for the day. She then relates to the children not as their boss, but as the assistant-boss who is there to help them meet the expectations of the family head. The critical element of this plan, of course, is the father's actually following through and getting a report when he returns home.

Leaving Work—Coming Home

While it may be emotionally demanding to move from the tensions of work to those of family leadership, a father really has no choice. There are a couple practical things he can do, however, to ease the transition.

First, he can make an appointment with his Master at the end of every work day. When the job is finished and he departs his place of employment he can stop to pray before he heads home. This can take place at his desk just before he leaves, in the car, or anywhere else that works for him. The idea, however it is done, is to consciously make the mental passage from being an employee to being a husband and father. He can cast upon the Lord all the anxieties related to his job that have accumulated through the day; he can ask the Lord for patience, wisdom, love and any other fruit of the Spirit he will need upon his return home; he can thank the Lord for his family and pray for them, asking specifically that God would use him for the benefit of his family once he is there. It would also be helpful to read some Scripture so that God's thoughts are filling his mind at this crucial time of day.

Second, he can arrange for a brief transitional period when he first arrives at the house. The family can be taught to respect Dad's need to take a few minutes to put his things away, change clothes, wash up, or whatever other rituals help him to become domesticated once again. After the initial kiss and hello, the family can back off and give him ten minutes (or whatever) to get readjusted to the home scene and be better prepared for taking on the mantle of family leadership again. While Dad should be gracious and loving upon his homecoming, his wife and children need to see that it can be overwhelming and even downright rude to intercept him at the front door and begin unloading on him before he's ready.

Once he has settled into the home groove again, a father needs to give his full concentration to his family. He may be tempted to sit and read the mail or immediately return to that unfinished project in the garage, but he first must tune into what his wife and children need—and usually what they need is just his undivided attention for a few minutes.

Just as he had an appointment with his Master upon leaving work to help him be prepared to return home, so now, once he is home, he needs to have an appointment with his wife and children. It's purpose is to hear about their day, tell about his own, make any decisions that have awaited his return, receive the report about family assignments for the day, and whatever else is needed to reenter the stream of family life and take charge of its course once again. A more or less formal "appointment" time will helpful for many; but Dad must at least informally turn his heart toward his family, reestablishing his presence and position as head of the home, after hours of separation.

Physically Present, Emotionally Absent

The emotionally-absent father, by way of contrast, will come home resenting that he has to listen to his wife and children. He will want his wife to continue to be in charge of the domestic scene. He will not want to be bothered with all the seemingly trivial concerns of his little ones. His attitude comes through: "Just leave me alone. I've got other things on my mind." He may justify this to himself since he has been working hard all day earning the family bread and now has a lot of other things he wants to do.

So what's new? Don't we all have more to do than we can get done? And couldn't his wife make an even better case for overwork in view of the absolute relentlessness of the homeworker-mother's job assignment? The fact is, this father is just plain selfish and needs to grow up, to accept the responsibility he agreed to when he took upon himself the roles of husband and father. It is a tough calling, but true manliness is accepting it without complaint and being a loving servant to those under his charge.

If the father has successfully made the transition from work to home, he will now be functioning once again as the actual leader of the family. He and his wife must agree that she will turn over to him the executive functions which she has borne in his absence. They may need to remind one another (and the children, as in our opening scenario) of who is in charge, but practice makes perfect and the more consistently they work to assume their respective roles the sooner it will become second nature to every member of the household.

Two Ways to Implement Leadership

Two key areas in which leadership is expressed in the home are Decisions and Discipline, and so it is in these two ways especially that Dad can exercise his authority when he is home.

It is a serious breach of God's domestic order for the wife to make major decisions about the household when her husband is present. Of course, the definition of "serious" can differ from couple to couple, but each man must define it for his own home. Most men would not care to have the children ask them to decide whether they should use the water colors or the colored pencils to make their pictures; this is generally a dimension of household order that is delegated to the wife even when Dad is present. On the other hand, Dad should always make the choices in matters that involve family policy. For example, if the rule is "no TV unless authorized" and the kids want to watch a nature show on public television, the father is the one who should make such a call if he is home.

Obviously, the more clearly the father has established general policy guidelines for his home the less he will have to make decisions on the fly. But no policy can anticipate every eventuality, and children are masters at probing the boundaries of previously-stated guidance. So there will always be a need for a Decision-Maker in the home; and when he is there, that job falls upon Dad.

Discipline is the other key area in which leadership is expressed in a household. In discussing God's discipline of his children, Hebrews 12 repeatedly refers to the analogy of a father giving discipline to his children (vv. 7-11). It is assumed in this passage that it is part of a father's responsibility to carry out discipline in his home. This flows naturally from his role as head of the family and representative of God the Father.

As in other dimensions of family administration the wife must discipline the children when Dad is absent, but that function should return to him upon his return. This can be a very delicate balancing act for the couple. The mother needs to be firm and consistent all day long (using the rod effectively when needed), but as soon as the household master has come home she must relinquish the office of primary disciplinarian. As with decision making, this will take determination and practice on the part of both spouses.

Dad and Mom are sitting in the living room reading as the children are playing quietly before time for bed. Suddenly there is a scream and angry words—an altercation between two of the children. Even though Mom has dealt with this earlier in the day and is still primed to wield that rod, even though Dad is exhausted from a long day of physical work, she must keep her seat and he must rise and deal with the offenses. He must do this because he is representing the heavenly Father to his family, and it is our Father who disciplines us for our good.

Checking Up on Attitude

It is in this matter of discipline especially that the father's leadership role can be weakened by his absence through the day. When the children misbehave, the mother must deal with the problem immediately. One of the principles of executing discipline is to do it quickly rather that waiting for time to pass and the lessons involved to be lost. So Mother cannot say, "Wait until your father gets home!" But each time she corrects the children, especially with the rod, she is assuming a role God designed primarily for a man, and the father loses an opportunity to demonstrate fatherhood to the children.

One way to minimize any potential damage from the father's absence is for him to discipline the children when he gets home for their attitudes through the day, especially attitudes toward the mother. Again, the mother must carry out the just sentence immediately when infractions occur through the day. She must deal with the behavior right away. But the father can add to this a punishment for a pattern of bad attitudes exhibited during his absence. This parallels the concept of the father giving assignments and checking up on the family's progress when he comes home.

He can assure his children in advance that their mother will deal with their behavior as needed while he is gone, but that he will deal with their attitude toward their mother and her authority when he returns. If one of the children is uncooperative, repeatedly rebellious, or generally makes trouble for Mom—that will require an additional punishment from Dad at the end of the day. In this way he maintains a presence and influences the atmosphere in the house even when he is not there.

There is no easy way to compensate for the absence of a man from his household, and we should not minimize the dangers that our contemporary way of life creates. But neither should we shrug our shoulders and despair of being the family leaders God has called us to be. With care and diligence a man can overcome many of the difficulties and have a home that is a credit to his Lord. When the challenges are great, our God stands ready with a great store of grace. All he needs is a heart willing to do his will.