Focus on the Family President and CEO Jim Daly has managed to rise above a harrowing childhood that began in the Compton suburb of Los Angeles. As he explains in detail in his memoir, Finding Home: An Imperfect Path to Faith and Family, Daly endured horrors growing up that no child should face.
A bloodcurdling neighborhood murder merely served as the backdrop to the abuse and alcoholism within the four walls of his own home, a cycle broken only by the cancer that left him motherless. Orphaned by 12, he somehow managed to catch enough glimpses of grace that he knew he wanted more, both from himself and from a God he had to believe existed.
CitizenLink chatted with him about what Father's Day meant, and now means, in the Daly household.
You were without your dad for a while growing up. How did that lack of a father in your life affect the way you grew up?
My dad left the family when I was 5 years old. My mom had enough of his antics. I didn't understand all that was occurring at the time, but in many different ways I think it led to a lack of confidence. Just being a kid going to a Little League game and seeing everybody else's dad there, but your dad's not there, that's a subtle thing that wounds the spirit of a little boy.
I remember feeling like I had lost something. And later, even in high school, I remember a football game that was agonizing, because it was dad's night and all the guys would come out with their dads, and here I am the quarterback of the team and I'd have to have some surrogate person come out. My best friend is standing in for my dad. It was painful.
I think we covered it with a lot of humor. That's the way people cope. But I just remember a lot of pain.
What about God through all of this? Can you see how he's been a father to you when your dad was gone?
Without a doubt. I think that's been the most real thing for me in my life. Even as a little boy I remember walking down the road with my dad right about at age 5, right before he left the family. And I have a lot of freckles on the back of my legs, and he said, "Boy, where did you get all those freckles?" And I said, "I think God gave them to me." There was something already connected there for me.
I had a sense of the Lord being my father all through my growing-up years -- when my mom died and my siblings and I entered the foster care system, then with my dad reemerging at 11 and then him dying a year later when I was 12. Through all of that, I felt God was with me.
You go through all of these things with your parents, and now you're married to the beautiful Jean and you have two children. How does that affect how you parent your boys?
I like to say it this way. My dad taught me a lot about fatherhood, more about what not to do. Yet he did some good things, too. I want to give him credit for that. He did show me love, and I think foundationally that's so important for a dad. Even with all the trauma in our family, I felt like my dad cared about me. He didn't abuse me, and there are many people out there who go through far worse experiences — emotionally, physically — with their fathers abusing them. My dad never did anything like that. He abused us through neglect. He drank and he had his horse races. So that was more important to him than the family, and I could feel that.
One thing he taught me in what he didn't do is just telling my boys I love them every day. If my two boys, Trent and Troy, were here right now, I'd say, "What does daddy believe?" And they'd answer: "That you love me, that you love me." I have pounded that into them every day; and that I'm proud of them. And I think that's been a good lesson for me to learn. It's what I needed. It's what I wanted to hear. And I can give that to my boys.
Tell me something that happened with one of your boys that really struck you in this whole realm of parenting.
This happened not that long ago. My 8-year-old, I had to discipline him for something, and he really takes it personally. He's a strong-willed, sensitive-hearted kid. And I think those are the most difficult children to parent because they're constantly doing things that they shouldn't do, and then when you're disciplining them it wounds them. And he's that way.
So we had to discipline him, and he went to his room and I went up, as we do, to reaffirm our love and our affection for him. And he wouldn't talk to me. He just kind of clammed up, and I was asking him questions: "How are you feeling? How does this make you feel?" And he wouldn't answer. Then he pointed to a tablet and a pencil. He wanted to write me a note. And so we fell into this thing where I would ask a question and he would write the answer on a notepad, which I now have saved.
It was very jarring for me because I said, "What's the matter?" And he said, he wrote in kid language so that everything's really misspelled, but you can read it: "I feel like you don't love me." And I said, "Why?" And he writes back on the pad, "Because sometimes you sound angry." And I responded verbally and said, "Well, that sometimes happens because of your behavior. I love you nonetheless, but when you do certain things, it does upset me. So daddy has to do a better job with that." And he wrote back a note and said, "That would be nice." And we had this little dialogue, me talking, him writing.
So if you have a child that maybe withdraws, pursue them. Go to their bedroom, talk to them. Sit on the bean bag with them. Get them through the moment. And I'm pleased that at the end of that 10-minute ordeal with Trent, we hugged each other. He had a big smile on his face. He got through the trauma. And he was talking again.
Isn't that just like the way God treats us? He just pursues us and pursues us and lovingly says, "Don't hold back. Tell me what's going on so that we can make this better."
We put big words around it like "confession" or "repentance," but that really is what's going on. "Tell me what's on your heart. Tell me why you're upset." And then He puts a smile on your face.
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