Qualities of a “Family Man”

In my last installment, “Ending My Douchebaggery” I discussed a simple yet practical way to better yourself that I stole and modified a bit from an experiment Benjamin Franklin tried. While he was trying to achieve what he called Moral Perfection, I opted for a more focused goal of being a better family man. To be a better family man, following Franklin’s lead, I have identified 9 qualities that I plan to track my progress against. I’d like to share those along with a brief description as to why each is important to me. It should be noted that the order here does matter because I intend to focus on the ones that give me the most trouble first, not necessarily because they are the most important quality (read: I’m working on the weakest link in the chain):

1. Compassion – The key here is, particularly when dealing with your wife or kids, try to understand and appreciate how they feel and the challenges they are faced with. I fit the stereotypical “man” here so it’s particularly important when dealing with my wife and daughters. The key here is recognizing the feelings of others and reacting to them.
2. Humility – This is sure to be one of my biggest problems as I like to be right and sometimes like to make sure others know when I am right. The goal here is to only be proud of being a good man, husband, father and to avoid any focus on self importance. This also include being able to admit when you are wrong.
3. Work Ethic – This isn’t so much in your work alone but is really aimed anything of use to you do. Hard work can be very contagious, yet, still be fun.
4. Devotion – I love this one because it seems, at least to me, to encompass commitment, faithfulness, reliability and affection.
5. Communication – Listen fully to family members, understand their challenges the their perspectives on them. Then be able to communicate back constructive suggestions. This also implies an willingness and openness to discuss things, regardless of difficulty, with family. This includes important topic often taboo in family life (e.g. sex, homosexuality, etc)
6. Frugality – I was nearly convinced by a friend to not include this quality as it seems out of place with all the other qualities. I’m not sure frugality is the right word for the quality I’m after here but my point is as a family man I feel a responsibility to be financially responsible and to preach financial responsibility to the rest of my family. While money isn’t a requisite for happiness, financial stability can certainly help. I don’t want frugality to imply you should be a miser, rather, that you should work to find a balance between financially responsible and knowing when to spend money to have a bit of fun.
7. Tough Love – a *quality* relationship cannot exist between two people if they are not free to constructively criticize and advise one another. If I have my head up my ass, tell me and give me suggests to right my path (read: you must be receptive to tough love). Additionally, with respects to discipline, be firm.
8. Levity – When was the last time you truly had fun? Do you have a sense of humor? Do make time to have fun with both your kids and your wife (together and separately)?
9. Integrity – What do you stand for and do you lead by example? If you want your kids to eat healthy, do you? You must be a role model, a moral compass. I’d like to explicitly list lying as a cardinal sin here and, after deliberation with a friend, I’ve also added lying as an explicit abomination. This include the blatant lies and, with more impact on me, “white lies”.

So there you have it, a list of qualities I will aspire to over the coming months. I will also publish my progress here using the same table layout prescribe by Benjamin Franklin in my prior post. In the meantime I’d love to hear if I missed any important qualities you feel a “family man” should aspire to or why you agree with any of the ones I’ve identified.

Tags: benjamin franklin, self improvement, self-help, virtues