One full month. Thirty days; 720 hours – this was the amount of time I had while I was transitioning between jobs.

When I Googled: “Please spend more time with …”, FAMILY popped up as the number one suggestion. It is interesting how Google thinks like my wife.

So I decided to take up Google’s (ahem, my wife’s) suggestion to be a full-time husband and father during those 30 days.

During this period, sending the children to school, washing clothes and cleaning the house became my routine. I only needed to manage two new colleagues named “washing machine” and “Magiclean broom”.

Cooking was excluded from my job description since it was not my core competency and there were concerns with food and fire safety.

I have five reflections to share as a full-time husband and father for this season. Sorry, they do not include housekeeping tips as my wife gave me 100 marks for intention but only a pass for household effectiveness.

1. Men should not attach value to their job titles. On my last day at the office, I realised that I had forgotten to discard my remaining name cards. Guess what? It did not matter. Someone else had helped me dispose of them because they were of no value to anyone anyway.

It is more important to be a child of God (John 1:12), saint (Ephesians 1:1), God’s masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10) and a minister of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:17-20), because these are my eternal identities in Christ. Our work titles change over our career and should not be the sole determinant of our worth.

2. Wives’ definition of Love is essentially Time – not just quality but also quantity. This translates to totally flexible schedules, doing the chores, breakfasts and the occasional supper together and lots of conversations with the wife.

Husbands are charged to love our wives as Christ loved us and gave His life for us (Ephesians 5:25). For maximum impact, check out the wife’s love language.

3. The father establishes moral authority. In his book, The World Needs a Father, Cassie Carstens wrote that “children look for anchors and they long to know what their fathers stand for”.

As a family we have agreed to focus on values such as empathy, integrity and obedience and how we should respond to lying, cheating and bullying.

After my wife commented that my eight-year-old son seemed more keen to discuss such issues with me than with her, I learnt to be more intentional in my conversations with him during the morning commute to school and before bedtime.

4. The father confers identity and affirms potential. According to Carstens, identity is predominantly formed by our values, friendships and choices.

When I discussed CCA choices with my son, I was pleasantly surprised. Besides interest, his selection criteria included keeping Friday evenings free for the church group gatherings that we host or attend on a regular basis.

This put me to shame. My son took the commitment seriously, while there were weeks I was inclined to skip the meeting.

As fathers, when we affirm our children’s good values and choices, we help seal their identity.

A UK survey cited by Casterns stated that parents communicate between 19 to 36 minutes per day with their children, out of which 70 per cent is negative or corrective.

To counter this mindset, Focus on the Family Singapore held a campaign encouraging parents to “Race to Praise, Celebrate Your Kid” for 30 days.

Affirmation works wonders. Once, I was helping out at a community event where my role was to tag children’s art pieces and enter them for a competition.

I noticed that a significant number of the children were brought to the event by helpers or grandparents.

I started engaging with each child and affirming his or her efforts. The change I saw was amazing – their eyes lit up and they exuded a newfound confidence.

If a stranger can make such an impact in one minute, imagine the positive impact parents can make in their children’s lives through regular affirmation.

Oh, and I am reminded that my wife needs affirmation on a regular basis too!

5. The father provides security. 1 John 4:18 tells us that there is no fear in perfect love. 

Like many fathers, I believe that my love for my children should not be performance-based or contractual.

But that was tested one day when I picked my son up after his exams.

I had determined to tell my son that I loved him regardless of his exam results.

But when he blurted out his marks before I had the chance to share my “love statement”, I switched to the kiasu parent mode where I wanted to know the denominator of the marks as it was the benchmark of his performance.

I repented and subsequently told him that I loved him regardless of his exam performance.

When I put my daughter to bed, I also assured her that no matter what problems she may encounter in future, our home was a place where she could return to safety and as parents we would help her in all situations.

What if the one full month – 30 days; 720 hours – was not just a job transition but all of my remaining days? What would I invest in?

Many roles are replaceable but not that of a father.