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This is the first of a three-part series on paragraph 7 in The Family: A Proclamation to the World. This one is on Fathers, the second is on Mothers, and the third is on Equal Partnership. Although we address each of these three in detail in separate essays, of course, fathering, mothering, and equal partnership are intricately interwoven in actual practice.
For example, in preparing to discuss the divine call to fathers to “preside, provide, and protect,” we quote from the sixth paragraph, “Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to care for each other and for their children. … Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness.” These two sentences call for couples to work closely together as spouses and parents.
The seventh paragraph of the Family Proclamation covers several important issues and is the longest (it is about twice as long as the next longest paragraph). We have been asked to focus on certain issues in the second half of the paragraph. Before we address those in detail (in this essay and the other two), we wish to make a couple of brief comments on ideas in the first half of the paragraph.
The Family Proclamation teems with words and phrases like “solemn responsibility” and “sacred duty” and “accountable (twice)” and “responsible” and “sacred responsibilities” and “obligated,” whereas the only time a word like “entitled” is used is in the statement, “Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity.” In other words, the Family Proclamation is not about privileges or perks but about responsibly caring for others. The fact that adults are charged to provide children with a lasting two-parent marriage characterized by “complete fidelity” speaks to the importance of such relationships to the most vulnerable among us, our children, whom Jesus said to care for (see Matthew 25:40 on “the least of these”).
We wish we had space to more fully address the two sentences. “Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.” We point the reader to this document, which includes links to more than 200 articles and chapters for scholarly and general audiences that we have written that deal with many aspects of the Family Proclamation, including these nine important principles. It also includes lists of podcasts, videos, and other media on Proclamation-related matters created by the American Families of Faith Project.
A portion of the charge to fathers reads: “By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families.”
We will address three paternal callings—to Preside, to Provide, and to Protect. A fourth charge, equal partnership, will be addressed at length in the third of three pieces in this series.
The Call to Preside: Presiding with “Gentleness, Meekness, and Love Unfeigned”
We begin with the following point of emphasis from President Boyd K. Packer: “However much priesthood power [a man] … may possess … [n]o man achieves the supernal exalting status of worthy fatherhood except as a gift from his wife.”(1) Four years earlier, President Howard W. Hunter taught that “one of the greatest things a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”(2)
Elder L. Tom Perry taught, “Fathers, by divine decree, you are to preside over your family. … You preside at the meal table, at family prayer. You preside at family [study]; and as guided by the Spirit of the Lord, you see that your children are taught correct principles.”(3)
But what does preside mean (and not mean) in a Proclamation context?
President Boyd K. Packer taught, “In the Church, … [w]e serve where called by those who preside over us,” but in contrast, “In the home it is a partnership with husband and wife equally yoked together, sharing in decisions, always working together.”(4)
President Marion G. Romney taught that wives and husbands “should be one in harmony, respect, and mutual consideration. Neither should plan or follow an independent course of action. They should consult, pray, and decide together. In the management of their homes and families, husbands and wives should counsel with each other in kindness, love, patience, and understanding.”(5)
BYU professor emeritus Jeff Hill summarized,
The process of becoming a faithful father is, in essence, the process of becoming like God. It is an apprenticeship. As a man seeks God’s help to preside, provide, protect, and partner in righteousness, he receives divine direction. Just as an apprentice learns line upon line from his master, so faithful fathers can look to God for guidance, and they too will learn.(6)
Alan Hawkins, former Director of BYU’s School of Family Life, stated in a Proclamation-based chapter(7), “Family stewardships should be understood in terms of their responsibilities—obligations to one’s spouse, not power over one’s spouse.” Hawkins also referenced “pointed instruction” from President Packer to a newly called stake president that “when there is a [family] decision to be made that affects everyone, you and your wife together will seek whatever counsel you might need, and together you will prayerfully come to a unified decision. If you ever pull priesthood rank on her, you will have failed.”(8)
Two definitions of “preside” from the Oxford English Dictionary include: “To exercise authority or control over” or “To act as … president.” These are often the presumed meanings outside of the Church of Jesus Christ. However, as repeatedly emphasized by church leaders, these are expressly not the meaning of preside in the Family Proclamation. Elder Perry clarified, “There is not a president or a vice president in a family. The couple works together eternally for the good of the family. … They are on equal footing.”(9) Indeed, being the domineering “boss” or “the final word” is not Proclamation-based presiding, it is the antithesis.
The Oxford Dictionary does offer a far more fitting definition of preside: “To officiate at a religious ceremony” or ordinance. As Hawkins and colleagues have explained,
Through Eve and her daughters, we enter mortal life, a necessary step in the plan of salvation, and are nurtured in light and truth. Through Adam and his sons, we may receive the saving ordinances of the priesthood that help us return to our heavenly home and gain eternal life. … Stewardship over priesthood allows a father to open some doors to spiritual progression for his family, just as stewardship over nurturing life allows a mother to open some doors to spiritual progression for her family.(10)
President Ezra Taft Benson, who served in the U.S. President’s Cabinet as Secretary of Agriculture, directed men not to follow the world’s approach to presiding but to look to a different exemplar: “Brethren, I say to you with all soberness, [Jesus] is the model we must follow as we take the spiritual lead in our families. Particularly, is this true in your relationship with your wife.”(11)
President Russell M. Nelson has similarly taught, “[B]rethren, your foremost priesthood duty is to nurture your marriage—to care for, respect, honor, and love your wife. Be a blessing to her and your children.”(12)
Combining directives from Presidents Packer, Romney, Benson, and Nelson, along with additional insights from Hawkins and the Oxford dictionary, a Christ-like “presider” and “spiritual lead[er]” in the home will diligently strive to “be a blessing” to his wife and children. He will keep his covenants so that he will remain in the position to literally bless his wife and perform priesthood ordinances for his children that will lift them, encourage them, and help them return to our heavenly home. How a father uses his priesthood and honors the call to preside matters profoundly. As we are taught in holy places, presiding is the sacred accountability to lead and bless through gentleness, meekness, and love unfeigned. And now a note on leading.
Presiding as Shared Leadership
President Howard W. Hunter wrote, “Presiding in righteousness necessitates a shared responsibility between husband and wife; together you act with knowledge and participation in all family matters”(13) (emphasis added).
Presiding may best be thought of as “shared leadership” in the home. The word preside includes “side,” and it may be helpful to think of presiding in love and righteousness as being present at the side of one’s equal partner in leading the family in gospel ways.
In a chapter on shared leadership (14), BYU family researchers Dollahite and Hill suggested that,
Successful shared leadership in the home means living by these principles: 1. Become of “one heart” through unfeigned love and friendship, 2. Put the marriage and family first, 3. Counsel together to envision and plan, 4. Work together to accomplish a family vision, 5. Celebrate differences by valuing each other’s gifts, 6. Make all important decisions together in humility, and (8) Support each other in the varied tasks of life (p. 141).
They also said,
Ideally, parents share leadership responsibilities and develop deep friendships with their children as well as with each other. In the premortal life, our children were equals with us, and in the eternal worlds they will have their own spouses. We are eternal equals, brothers, sisters, and friends with our children, parents, siblings, and so forth. Although we should not turn into “buddies” who fail to discipline our children, as parents, we should work toward an eternal friendship with them (p. 149).
Doctrine & Covenants (D&C) Section 121 teaches the following about priesthood leadership:
That the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness.
That they may be conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man (D&C 121:36-37; emphasis added).
The call to preside is a sacred responsibility, not a privilege, position, or perk. In sharp contrast with unrighteous dominion, Elder Neal A. Maxwell emphasized,
I, along with my brethren of the priesthood, express undying gratitude to our eternal partners. We know that we can go no place that matters without you, nor would we have it otherwise. When we kneel to pray, we kneel together. When we kneel at the altar of the holy temple, we kneel together. When we approach the final gate where Jesus Himself is the gatekeeper, we will, if faithful, pass through that gate together.(15)
Ultimately, our greatest exemplar in righteous leadership is the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, “I am the same that leadeth men to all good” (Ether 4:12). The Savior led by example in many contexts, but the overarching leadership principle the Savior exemplified was service and sacrifice for those whom He led.
The Call to Provide and Protect
Having explored the prophetic, Proclamation-based call to fathers to righteously preside, we turn to the sacred call to “provide and protect.” The Proclamation addresses providing the “necessities of life,” but what else is entailed in this charge? Hand-in-hand with the charge to preside through offering ordinances, righteous fathers are also to provide Gospel teaching, learning, and example—all of which work together to protect children from the destructive dangers that abound today.
One remarkable father we have interviewed in the American Families of Faith project worked in a maximum-security prison that often seemed to him to be saturated with “pure evil.” Consistent with the Proclamation charge of fathers to protect, he emphasized,
There is enough bad influence out there in the world. There are plenty of people and media and whatever that can lead our children astray— can lead them to a place that we don’t want them to go. And there is enough of that out there that we don’t need to have it in here in our home, within the walls of our home. The walls of our home should be a sanctuary.(16)
So how did this father try to provide Gospel teaching and establish a “sanctuary”—or as he called it, “a rock”?
Family prayer [and] the study of the scriptures … it always comes back to this is what we believe. … [I]t’s a rock we all can hold on to. It’s always gonna be there, it’s never changing, it’s there to comfort us. And the teachings that we [learn] through the scriptures … these are things that I as a parent … need to take into my own life, and in turn lead my family … by teaching those things, by living those things, [by] being an example. … [I] feel a very strong responsibility to live up [to] that.(17)
President Howard W. Hunter taught, “A man who holds the priesthood leads his family in Church participation so they will know the gospel and be under the protection of the covenants and ordinances.”(18) The walls of a home fortified by such protection are not impermeable, but they are protective. This may add meaning to why President Harold B. Lee emphasized that “the most important of the Lord’s work you and I will ever do will be within the walls of our own homes.”(19) Such protection is not simply home-bound, however. President Hunter further taught, “A righteous father protects his children with his time and presence in [all] their social, educational, and spiritual activities and responsibilities.”(20)
In our more than 25 years of interviewing strong families, a memorable and remarkable father “provided” by repeatedly taking one of his children with special needs to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for specialized care. Instead of complaining about the significant costs of time and money involved in providing such care for his son, he instead framed his efforts this way:
Fatherhood is really, perhaps, the greatest thing that I could attain to. If I’m president of the United States, if I’m a C.E.O. of a major corporation, or if I receive recognition in any particular endeavor, no matter what it may be, that will end. The time would come and I would be voted out of office, or I would resign or retire, or I would lose my position or whatever it may be . . . and yet I will always be the father of my children. … I remember when I (first got married) experiencing the joy of marriage, married life, and thinking, “Ah, this is real life. This is what it was all about.” … But I remember after we had a child … looking back at everything before and saying, “No, no, no, marriage isn’t the end of the road here. Having a child,” I thought, “This is what life is really all about. This is the great experience in life.”(21)
The Proclamation calls men to preside, provide, and protect—but the prophets who “solemnly proclaimed” these things have also emphasized again and again that these things must be done in the Lord’s way. We draw inspiration from fathers like our living prophet, President Russell M. Nelson who are quietly doing their best. Such efforts and examples rekindle a desire in us to do likewise.
May we always remember President Ezra Taft Benson’s teaching that “Father[ing] … is an eternal calling from which you are never released. … A father’s calling is eternal, and its importance transcends time.”(22)
Five Research Findings Regarding What Good Dads Add:
A May 2024 report(23) from Jenet Jacob Erickson and Jason S. Carroll of the Wheatley Institute summarizes:
1. “The father-child bond tends to be more stimulatory, playful, and open, compared to the mother’s security-oriented bond.” (p. 2)
2. “Fathers tend to focus on fostering independence, which is key to a child’s ability to take initiative and develop skills.” (p. 2)
3. “Evidence suggests that fathers help give their children a sense of authority and boundary because they confront their children and enforce discipline. This shapes children’s sense of stability, order, confidence, and later self-governance.” (p. 2)
4. “An involved father has been identified as the strongest predictor of college graduation.” (p. 3)
5. “Father involvement has also been proven to be a strong protection against delinquent and criminal behaviors in their children’s lives that continue into adulthood.” (p. 3)
References:
(1) Boyd K. Packer (1998, May). The Relief society. Ensign, 28, (p. 73).
(2) Hunter, H. W. (1994, November). Being a righteous husband and father, Ensign, 24, 49-51. (p. 50)
(3) Perry, L. T. (2004, May). Fatherhood, an eternal calling. Ensign, 34, 69-72. (pp. 72, 71)
(4) Packer, 1998 (p. 73).
(5) Marion G. Romney, “In the Image of God,” Ensign, March 1978, 2.
(6)Hill, E. J., & Dollahite, D. C. (2014). Faithful fathering. In B. L. Top & M. A. Goodman (eds.), By divine design (pp. 193-221). BYU Religious Studies Center/Deseret Book. (p. 218, emphasis added)
(7)Hawkins, A. J., Spangler, D. L., Hudson, V., Dollahite, D. C., Klein, S. R., Rugh, S. S., Fronk, C.A., Draper, R. D., Sorensen, A. D., Wardle, L. D., & Hill, E. J. (2000). In D. C. Dollahite (ed.), Strengthening our families: An in-depth look at The Proclamation on the Family. Bookcraft. This chapter was co-authored by authors from disciplines including law, psychology, history, religion, and family studies.
(8)Hawkins et al., 2000; see also Broderick, C. (1986). One flesh, one heart: Putting celestial love into your temple marriage. Deseret Book. (p. 32).
(9)Perry, 2004 (p. 71).
(10) Hawkins et al., 2000 (pp. 64-65).
(11) Taft Benson, E. T. (1987, November). To the fathers in Israel. Ensign, 17 (11), (p. 50).
(12) Nelson, R. M. (2006, May). Nurturing marriage. Ensign, 36, 36-38 (p. 37).
(13) Hunter, “Being a Righteous Husband and Father,” (p. 51)
(14) Dollahite, D. C., & Hill, E. J. (2010). A house of God: Joseph and Hyrum as husbands and fathers. In M. E. Mendenhall, H. B. Gregersen, J. S. O’Driscoll, H. S. Swinton, & B. England (Eds.), Joseph and Hyrum: Leading as One (pp. 145-163). Provo, UT, BYU Religious Studies Center.
(15)Neal A. Maxwell, “Women of God,” see “The Women of God.”
(16) Marks, L. D., & Dollahite, D. C. (2022). Home-centered gospel learning and living: Seeking greater personal revelation. Deseret Book/BYU Religious Studies Center (p. 96).
(17) Marks & Dollahite, 2022 (pp. 95, 96).
(18) Hunter, 1994 (p. 51).
(19) Harold B. Lee (1974). Stand ye in holy places. Deseret Book. (p. 225)
(20) Hunter, 1994 (p. 51).
(21) Marks, L. D., & Dollahite, D. C. (2017). Religion and families. Routledge. (p. 198)
(22) Benson, 1987 (p. 48).
(23) Erickson, J. J., & Carroll, J. S. (2024). It takes two: What we learn from the social sciences about the importance of mothers and fathers and divine complementarity in parenting. Wheatley Institute; See also full-length article: Erickson, J. J. (2023). It Takes Two. BYU Studies Quarterly, 62(1), Article 2.
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