On Sunday, October 25, my son, TieriayoOluwa, turns five.
It feels surreal.
I became his father at 51, after fifteen years of marriage. Those years were not empty years of waiting. God was preparing me for fatherhood.
Yet nothing could have prepared me for raising him quite like raising him.
Five years together. Five lessons.
1. THE BLESSING OF PARENTING IS IN THE BURDEN OF PARENTING.
The blessing is in accepting the responsibility: the heavy lifting, the sacrifices, the daily decision to show up.
“Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest; yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul.” — Proverbs 29:17 (KJV)
The work we evade today may become the damage control we face tomorrow.
2. EVERY CHILD COMES WITH A UNIQUE MANUAL.
No two children are the same.
Universal parenting principles matter. But the assignment is applying objective quantities to subjective qualities—the peculiarities of the child before us.
We say siblings were raised by the same parents.
Were they?
Human beings are constantly becoming. Parents change between one child and the next.
Even with one child, I am no longer the man I was five years ago.
I have grown. Changed. Metamorphosed.
I am one father in many.
And my son is changing too. I must keep learning him.
3. CHILDREN ARE EITHER BENEFICIARIES OR CASUALTIES OF OUR EXAMPLES.
Children follow what we do long before they understand everything we say.
Our lives become their curriculum.
Our habits become their lessons.
What we consistently model is what our children become.
4. LOVE BETWEEN PARENTS AND CHILDREN IS CULTIVATED THROUGH FELLOWSHIP.
Love does not deepen by chance.
Fellowship is the breeding ground for intimacy.
I resumed travelling when my son was three months old. When he turned two, I stopped travelling for about eighteen months. Today, he is homeschooled, and I am home with him much of the time.
I describe myself as a full-time father.
My marriage comes first. Fatherhood comes second. Other commitments must find their place around those two.
Fatherhood cannot be what I do with leftover time.
The more we fellowship, the more I know him. The more I know him, the more I appreciate him. The deeper our love grows.
Children do not care how much we know until they know how much we care.
Josh McDowell warned that truth without relationship invites rejection, rules without relationship invite rebellion, and discipline without relationship breeds bitterness and resentment.
Even prayer, he argued, cannot substitute for building a relationship.
That is why I invest in fellowship.
5. LOVE NEVER FAILS. MY PARENTING MODEL IS LOVE.
I do not beat my son.
I raise him with love.
And love is sometimes toughest on me.
I have lost my cool and disappointed myself. I acknowledge it, correct myself and return to love.
I do not define my fatherhood by labels—authoritarian, authoritative or gentle.
My model is LOVE.
Sometimes love requires firmness; sometimes gentleness. Sometimes boundaries; sometimes patient listening.
Whatever the response, it must serve my child, not my ego.
Billy Graham wrote in Just As I Am about a strict upbringing without abuse.
His recollection reminds me that loving correction and oppression are not the same.
Love never excuses abuse.
What does love look like to my son?
APPRECIATION AND ATTENTION.
Appreciation: recognising his dignity, uniqueness and worth.
Attention: being present, listening, guiding and correcting without terrorising.
Appreciation and attention. Appreciation and attention.
That is how he knows he is loved, not merely told he is loved.
Paul writes that faith, hope and love remain, “but the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13).
God is love (1 John 4:8).
And the Lord disciplines those He loves (Hebrews 12:6).
My confidence is not that I will parent perfectly.
It is that I will keep returning to love.
“Love never fails.” — 1 Corinthians 13:8.
And so my prayer is simple:
Lord, help me never to lose the love edge over my son.
My precious TieriayoOluwa, you are growing.
And so am I.
Five years of your life. Five years of becoming your father.
Happy fifth birthday in advance, my son.
#50PlusDad
