Evangelical speaker and bestselling author Jefferson Bethke is baffled why Mother's Day gets more attention than Father's Day. He thinks that fathers "can do a lot better."
In a video he posted on YouTube, Bethke offers tips on how dads can improve in their role.
He says he disagrees with the "'Pleasantville' depiction of the mother and a father where the dad kind of works really hard during the day and then believes when he gets home that he can have a beer, he can sit and watch ESPN, and it's the mom's job to parent, to do the dishes, to cook, to change the poopy diapers, to get the kids dressed."
Bethke said dads should avoid this attitude since parenting is not only a mother's job. "It's a parent's job to parent," he says.
"But we have to actually see how we can come together as husband and wife and make a better team for our kids," he advises.
He says dads don't realise the "joy you're missing out on by not 'being in the trenches' with your kids" like doing the dishes, changing diapers and cooking dinner sometimes.
Bethke tells dads that "work is not more important than your family," pointing out that if a man's wife and children feel that his work gets more time than them, it becomes a problem.
"I know plenty of kids who kind of grow up with this bitterness not only with their parents who may be in the ministry like as a pastor and the church got their dad's time and they didn't," he says.
He says people don't realise that when they open the Scripture, the two commandments of "be fruitful and multiply" and "cultivate and subdue the land" are intertwined.
Bethke says family and work are paired together in the Scripture, but family should come first.
The author says the most important tip he can give is to tells dads that "your voice will be the shaping voice over your kids."
"It'll also probably be their inner thought voice when they become teenagers and adults," he says.
He says dads should tell their kids that "I love you no matter what you do" and not "I love you because of what you do."
Bethke says dads are being stereotyped in sitcoms where they are portrayed as people who watch TV and drink beer, watch sports events, do not get themselves involved with their kids, are lazy and distant to their families.
"I think that's a bad portrayal of fatherhood and whatever dad truly is," he says.
He says it's okay for dads to think critically and be gentle, tender, compassionate.
Bethke says he believes dads should not have "me time" and probably should have no personal hobby. If they do, he says, it should include the family.
