Family Writing Trio Honors Fathers with 'I Love You, Dad'

With another Father’s Day looming close on the horizon, it is so easy to get caught up with what to get dad on his special day.

But Father’s Day is so much more than honoring dear old Dad with a new tie, a “World’s Best Dad” t-shirt, or some new fishing lures.

Malachi 4:6 tells us that God will turn father’s hearts to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers.

In other words, being a good Dad is serious business! Godly fathers provide a glimpse of God’s relationship to us through protection, provision, love, and discipline.

For family writing team, Blythe Daniel (mother), William Daniel (son), and Helen McIntosh (grandmother), honoring fathers meant coming together to write a book about  expressing in words the value that fathers should hold in our hearts. 

Through heartwarming stories, Scripture verses, and a blast of humor, I Love You, Dad (End Game Press), highlights all that should be cherished in our fathers: compassion, respect, honesty, but most importantly, God-infused wisdom to lead our families.

I recently sat down with two-thirds of this writing team, Blythe and William, to discuss why it is so vital to treasure our fathers, important attributes of a good dad, and how a relationship with our Heavenly Father is the most important we can have.

If you were trying to convince a friend to pick up a copy of I Love You, Dad, and give it a read, what would you say to encourage them? What would your sales pitch be?

Blythe Daniel: I'd say that if you want to be encouraged in your role as a father, then open up this book and see God's words to you that come through the Bible that encourage you. Some of the stories that we share that are coming from dads, or our experience with dads, are really meant to just give you affirmation and appreciation for your role as a dad. And then the best part is Williams' jokes . And that's one way that he really does inspire people and cause people to just live a little bit more lighthearted.

William Daniel: My first book that I wrote as an author was, “You're Joking Me”. It was a joke book I wrote with Revell. It was my first piece of work. It is what got me started in writing. And of course when writing a book for dads, I instinctually thought, oh, let's put jokes in there. So I put jokes in there talking about things that dads like. Also, I can call them dad jokes. For example, jokes about grilling. 

For every writer, there always seems to be a trigger, a tipping point, a moment where you say to yourself, “I have to write this book!” For I Love You, Dad, what was that moment for you?

Blythe Daniel: My book that I wrote with my mom was, I Love You, Mom. And so we wanted to then turn around and provide some encouragement for dads, because we really believe that words have so much meaning behind them. And sometimes we think that another person knows that we care about them, and yet we don't often tell them that this is who we see them as, and this is how we appreciate them. So, when we got together and started talking about this book, we thought, what could this book be for? Dads don't have a lot of time to read. Some dads may not want to read at all, but there could be a prayer in it. And we have a prayer. There could be some jokes, there could be some stories and encouragement that dads could take a little bit of time to read. So, we really wanted to pour into dads as much as we have in other books with other family members.

I should note that your mother, Helen Macintosh is also a co-author of this book. What I find fascinating is that this book was written by three generations from the same family … a son, a mother, and a grandmother. Why the decision to approach this book as not only a trio, but as a family trio?

Blythe Daniel: I think that we really wanted to communicate that families have such a need to get together, to talk, and affirm each other. We don't often get that, as culture doesn't always affirm moms or even affirm dads. As a family, we just wanted to do this project together using our different gifts and strengths to just say, ‘Hey dad, you're important’ There's a generational pattern here of just wanting to come together and say, ‘Hey, we notice you, we see you.’ My mom's dad was a colonel in the Air Force Force, so we have at least one story that I can recall where we talk about the role of dads and how dads like my grandfather protected his family. He moved his family to wherever they were being called on an assignment, and how God does that with dads. We tried to parallel some real life heroes and individuals such as Billy Graham and others that have lived a life of inspiration for dads. We just thought we'd put all that together, to really speak into the lives of dads.

We live in a world that seems to marginalize Dads, or put them in the corner. Why is it so important in the world we are currently living in to portray Dads in such a positive manner?

Blythe Daniel: I think that dads have been put into a place where in the quest for people to just increase visibility for women, that dads have sort of been pushed aside a bit in the feminine narrative of helping women take their role. And so men have sort of gotten pushed aside or portrayed as just sort of weak. We see sitcoms, right? We see shows where the dad is sort of this weak central figure and people laugh at it. But what that does is it weakens the family and we know that dads are the centerpiece of the family. That's how God designed it. I think what happens is that dads feel less and less important. They check out, they don't get affirming words from other family members or told, ‘Hey, I noticed that sacrifice’, or, ‘Thank you for working hard for us.’

Dads can detach and we understand that. We know that they need their time to reflect on what they've gone through after long work days. But if we can be children, wives, and daughters that say, ‘Hey, your sacrifices are really worth it.’ We're growing into the people that we know we need to be. But even more so, we see how God is our heavenly Father, and God is the one that will always affirm us, even if we've not received that affirmation from a dad, or, it's really hard for us to give affirmation to a dad. This book really does help the reader look at their relationship with God, because God is the one that has put that identity in fathers to be dads, and He's given us that identity as a son or a daughter. This writing opportunity has really caused us to look deeper at the character of God. And all the topics of the devotions really reflect who God is in our lives when it comes to compassion and wisdom.

This book seems to highlight positive attributes of dads in everyday life. Do you see any one attribute in a dad as being the most important?

William Daniel: I think wisdom is the most important because the fatherly figure, arguably from the perspective of a son, wisdom is putting knowledge to use. I talk a lot about this in the book, how knowledge and wisdom are similar but different. But they go hand in hand. For a father to give his son wisdom is most important because it helps him to become a father in the future. It sets him up to make wise decisions and to be the best son.

I’m going to get personal here. For each of you, what do you love and appreciate the most about your Dad?

Blythe Daniel: I love my dad for different qualities, but probably it’s the way that he has always made me feel loved and cared for in a healthy way. It was easier for me to make the connection with my Heavenly Father because I had a good role model. I have a good earthly father, and I've watched my dad sacrifice. I've watched my dad take jobs that he didn't really want to take, just so that we could have food on the table and be provided for. And I've watched him sacrifice not having some things that he needed to have, but he wanted us to have. And so his faithfulness to us and to my mom, the way he loves and cherishes her.

William Daniel: My dad has really been a good influence on me. I would say the same thing, how he's taking up jobs and stuff to provide for our needs and wants. He really has given me experiences. Lately we've been doing a lot of stuff for band at school, and he's been really into it since he did band in high school. He's been actually helping out with my marching band. It's been fun for him, but it's also been really fun for me to see that my dad's not just this figure who's just passing out stuff and saying, ‘Have fun.’ He's actually getting in on the action with us.

After people have had a chance to read, I Love You, Dad, what would you like your readers to get out of the experience? What is your greatest hope for the book?

William Daniel: Encouraging fathers to do their thing and start conversations. I hope that it encourages them to teach their kids and to take an active role as a father in their kids' life. From my perspective as a son, it is really important that I see my dad not struggle with anything, mental or even physical. I just want to see him thrive.

Blythe Daniel: My greatest hope would be that dads would start to have some conversations with their family members. Maybe this book just affirms something in them that they can see that God has said to them through Scripture or through a story, that it just speaks to their heart in a way that they haven't experienced before. My hope is that they could share that with their family, but then pass this book on to someone else that they think could really be encouraged by it. That we could start this opportunity for dads to feel noticed and highlighted. One of the statistics that I read researching for this book, showed that about 52% of men in the home feel unseen. And that's really hard to think about. Women often get seen because we're helping with the kids and we have even more female friendships and opportunities to connect as women. But for dads, sometimes they don't get that opportunity and don't have the time to take it. And so, I would love to see dads feel like that this book pours into their soul and encourages them.

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