Livingston Ferdinand Brady was serving time in a Nashville federal prison for bootlegging whiskey when he died of consumption in 1901. He was 46 years old and left behind a wife and seven young children.

His grandson, Davies Franklin Brady, ran out on his wife and only child, a preteen son, and escaped to Michigan to do mindless work on Ford’s automotive assembly line. He drank his life away in solitude and died at 66 years old.

Davies son, Bobby, avoided jail time and remained faithful to his wife for sixty years. They had three daughters and a son. So far, none of them have been convicted of crimes.

I am the son.

The Story of My Father

My father inherited no advantages in life. He came from a poor, uneducated family and clawed his way through adolescence and puberty without a father figure or good role models. He even lacked a maternal grandfather because no one knew who he was.

If that wasn’t enough, his mother was diagnosed with incurable kidney disease in her early thirties. Dad wasn’t college-bound, and not seeing any prospects in the mill town he called home, he quit high school at 17 and joined the Navy.

He met my mom along the way, and they married at 21, bearing three daughters and finally me, the only son, nine years later.

My Father Did the Best He Could

I wish I could say my dad completely overcame the dysfunction of his ancestors and was the greatest father in the world, but I can’t. Don’t get me wrong. In no way was he a bad father; he was faithful, worked hard, and provided a stable home for us. We can call that a win for the Brady men.

But Dad was emotionally absent and inattentive, spending time alone in his shop or the garden or staring blankly at the television. As a wild kid in need of a guiding hand, or at least someone to show me how to throw a curve ball, I wasn’t empathetic about the reasons for his shortcomings.

I was bitter.

Your Experience Can Shape How You Raise Your Son

This bitterness, however, served a good purpose because I set out to be a completely different father. My kids would receive everything I wanted and needed and things I didn’t realize I needed. By the time I had my first son at 39 years old, I had nine years of practice raising two daughters and was especially excited about a male baby, Brady.

My daughters are in their mid-20s, and my son recently turned 18. The girls are college graduates, one is married, and my college-bound son is considering a career in medicine.

They all have the character and integrity to be nuns and priests.

While I haven’t been a perfect father, if you measure success by how your kids turn out, I’d give myself an 8.1, and I might have some good advice for young fathers.

I would specifically like to offer my two cents to fathers of young sons.

7 Tips for Fathers Raising Sons

1 – Raise Your Son by Your Side

Saturdays are your DIY home project day, I know, but instead of doing the projects yourself, do them with your son. Changing the toilet flush valve will take a little longer, but your higher priority is spending time with your son and teaching him to be handy. Here are a few benefits of shadow-teaching your son:

• He will come to understand the importance of hard work and recognize that it is an expected part of life.
• You will experience valuable bonding time that’s not easily replicated any other way.
• He will build confidence as he learns skills.

My son has grown to love hard work and isn’t afraid to tackle any task. He stays busy working part-time, dog-sitting for neighbors and friends, and doing yardwork for anyone who needs it. People contact him all the time because they know he possesses a world-class work ethic.

These traits didn’t just happen. He acquired them because I sacrificed project speed for on-the-job training.

2 – Give Up Your Weekends

Your son has waited all week to spend time with you on Saturday. Don’t ditch him for golfing or hunting with your buddies. You don’t have to completely sacrifice your hobbies, but scale back until you can include him. Let him know, or more importantly, let him feel that he is a priority to you and not a nuisance.

Let your weekends be a mixture of things that you want him to experience and pursuits that interest him. My son and I have geo-cached, played Pokemon Go, hacked a golf ball for a couple of years, fished, learned to filet bass, spent a summer riding the whitewater at the NC Whitewater Center, and recently purchased season tickets to the Carolina Panthers after attending games for the last few years. We love arriving early and riding the electric scooters around town.

We called Saturdays DOA, and no, it doesn’t mean dead on arrival. DOA means “day of adventure.” Start planning your own DOAs with your son. You won’t miss your buddies on the golf course.

3 – Teach Your Son How to Shake Hands

How many young men do you know who address other men by looking them in the eyes, smiling, and offering a firm handshake? My son does. He follows up this friendly greeting by maintaining eye contact, nodding occasionally to show he’s paying attention, continuing to smile, and contributing to the conversation. He never glances at his phone or acts like he’s in a hurry.

I’ve met grown men who need to take lessons from my 18-year-old son. He has treated people with respect and dignity since he was a child. But he wasn’t hatched out of the womb with this behavior.

Teaching your son how to properly address people is one of the biggest favors you can do for him. He will make a lasting impression on others, which will serve him well over time.

4 – Break Bread with Your Son

My son and I have made a list of favorite restaurants over the years so we won’t forget them. We’ve spent a lot of time sharing meals together, just the two of us, eye-to-eye, uninterrupted, except by our restaurant server.

These times make me think of my dad tilling his garden every spring, working the soil, mixing in fertilizer, planting the seeds, and waiting for the harvest.

In between forking breakfast omelets or meticulously sucking all the meat off chicken wings, we had time to talk about important things and silly things, develop a rapport, and become comfortable with each other. We were tilling the ground of our relationship.

My son now invites me out to eat and pays for my meal.

5 – Prepare Your Son Early for the Hell of Hormones

To paraphrase financial nut, Dave Ramsey, “You know Christmas is coming in December. Start saving in January.” That’s great advice for your finances, and the corollary advice for raising sons is, “Puberty is coming for your son. Make sure he is prepared for it.”

Hormones ravaged and tormented me for years, and I was left completely alone to deal with their nasty side effects. Hormones can have an almost powerful, demonic pull on boys who lack a strong guiding hand to shape their moral character and help establish boundaries. Boys also need a productive outlet to release their pent-up energy and frustration. My son began Tae Kwon Do at 6 years old and was a black belt by 15.

I began to have honest conversations with my son about sex and girls when he was 8 years old. I warned him about the changes that would soon happen in his body and their powerful effects. He needed to know what to expect and how to handle things.

Proverbs 27:12 says,

A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences.

A teenage boy blinded by raging hormones may not foresee danger if his father doesn’t spell it out for him. Here are a few tips I gave my son:

Honor young ladies like you want guys to treat your sisters.

Never get into the backseat of a car with a girl.

Don’t date a girl who would ask you to get into the backseat.

Don’t go to a girl’s house when her parents aren’t home.

6 – Encourage Your Son to Develop Godly Relationships

A young man’s hormone battle is like a strong ocean undertow pulling him towards immoral relationships with girls. Encourage your son to seek relationships with Godly young men. He can find these guys in your church’s youth group. They are the ones who attend church every Sunday, youth meetings on Wednesday nights, and every church camp. These relationships will help offset your son’s need for approval from the opposite sex.

The time invested in these Godly relationships yields a much healthier return over the long haul than with girls. There’s a 98% chance that your son will not marry any of the girls he dates in high school. Yet, there’s a nearly 100% chance that he will get his heart broken, waste emotional energy, and get distracted from more important pursuits, such as prepping for college and discovering his purpose in life. Additionally, there’s a risk of getting a girl pregnant, which will profoundly impact his future plans and responsibilities.

On the other hand, he could develop healthy, lifelong relationships with Godly guys.

7 – Raise Your Son to Know Who He Is In Christ

This tip about raising your son is the most critical. All the tasty Cajun ranch chicken wings would have gone to waste had I not been speaking Jesus to my son over our meals.

We ate many meals while also reading through age-appropriate books about the Christian faith. Or we dedicated time at home to go into a room, close the door, read and have private discussions.

Some of the books we read:

• Preparing for Adolescence by Dr. James Dobson
• The Case for Christ for Kids by Lee Strobel
• The Talk: 7 Lessons to Introduce Your Child to Biblical Sexuality by Luke Gilkerson
• What Every Christian Ought to Know by Adrian Rogers

My son was 8 when we read The Talk over a weekend at the lake, camping and geocaching.

Teaching your son about his identity in Christ not only guides him to the most important decision he will ever make but also grants him one of life’s greatest gifts for a young man – confidence.

This confidence calms the chaos caused by the many challenges of getting through his teen years.

Raising Your Son Is One of Your Greatest Gifts

These seven tips for raising your son sound like a lot of time and work, and they are. But the benefits far outweigh the costs. The Bible says you reap what you sow (Galatians 6:7). My life over the past 18 years has been so fun and purpose-filled, and honestly, without much worry because my son makes good decisions.

Are you curious about how my son feels about his upbringing? Over lunch, I shared with him this blog topic and he asked if I wanted his input. Absolutely. Given the amount of time he and I have spent together, his response was surprising.

He said,

You always gave me a lot of freedom growing up. Freedom to make my own decisions and suffer the consequences. And that’s an important part of growing up. You have to own your mistakes. Boys who are too sheltered don’t know how to act when they are away from their parents. You also let me become the person I wanted to be instead of forcing me into your own image.

These words are one of the greatest gifts anyone has ever given me.

Wrapping It Up

You will never regret the time invested with your son. Don’t let the devil deceive you into thinking you can’t be an awesome father because you didn’t have one. My father began the shift for the Brady family because he stayed with us and provided a stable home. I picked up the baton and carried it further down the road. These tips and more, including ideas on how to keep dating your wife and how to raise your daughters, are available in my book, Stronger Down the Stretch.

PS. I’d like to give my wife of 30+ years a ton of credit for homeschooling our kids and creating a warm, loving, Christian home.

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