Fatherly advice

     I probably have no right to give advice to my children-seems like I did very little to help raise them.  In my own defense; my job kept me away from home 15-16 hours a day 5 days a week.
     However, before I started commuting 1.5 hours a day I lived in the city in which I worked and my commute was about 15 minutes or less.  And I was not hardly making it home in time to see my children at night before they went to bed-in the mornings I left before anyone got up-so the only time I saw my kids was Saturday and Sunday.
      I started regretting this situation when my eldest started middle school, but by then I was pretty well locked into the long commute.  The only way out of that situation would have been to move back to my original city or quit my job.  My employer consistently loaded me down with enough work that it was impossible to do the job and get home in time in the p.m. to see my kids before they went to bed.
     Anyway, this was to be about advice, not complaints.  I suppose that the key bit of advice I would give my children is this:  spend as much time with those children as you can-the quality time that liberals were espousing a few years ago is an illusion.  Quality is most easily achieved by the quantity of time spent together.  For the sons: do not let/force the wife to do all the raising of the children-be there for them as much as you possibly can.  Whether they will appreciate it or not, you will have done what you could do for them.  For the daughter:  the majority of the child care will fall on your shoulders-whether that is right or not, it is a fact of our existence.  But... get that husband/father to spend as much time with his children as you can.  For his sake as well as that of the children.
     Take the children to church.  DO NOT drop them off and go back home or expect Grandma to take them and you stay home.  If you do not attend, what kind of message does that give the kids?  Help with homework-take them with you when you go to the store-read to them.  Whatever creative ways you can find to spend time with them and to give their mother a break from the tedium of childcare.
     Guess that is about all I got.  Fathers, spend as much time with those little ones as you can.  They grow up incredibly fast; and your influence will wane tremendously as they mature.  May God richly bless your endeavors!