Fathers Help Families Prosper

The best Father’s Day gift is time, presence, and the freedom to help lead a family well.

Hello Friends,

Father’s Day feels different when your father is no longer here.

I still think about my dad, Harold Ginn, his bright smile, his love of classic rock, and the countless hours we spent playing baseball, basketball, and pool. I remember him helping with my homeschool lessons, teaching me math tricks, listening as I learned the drums, and later showing up at my concerts.

He did not have an easy life.

At 17, my dad suffered a severe head injury in a traffic accident. He spent weeks in a coma, lost his memories from before the wreck, and struggled with short-term memory loss afterward. He still tried college, became a draftsman, and sometimes worked two jobs to support his family.

Then epilepsy changed everything.

After frequent seizures and several car accidents, he reluctantly stopped working and driving in 1987. He took about a dozen pills each day, underwent treatments, and lived with limits that would have crushed many people. Yet, as I wrote in this remembrance of his life⁠, he rarely complained. He wanted to work. He loved his family. He kept moving forward with faith and courage.

My dad died unexpectedly in his sleep in 2011 from Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy⁠, or SUDEP. I was 29. Losing him broke something in me that has never fully healed.

But his lessons remain.

A father does not need a perfect life to make a lasting difference. He needs to be present. My dad could not always provide in the traditional way, but he gave me something no government program could replace: his attention, encouragement, wisdom, and unconditional love.

Now, as a father of three, I understand that gift more deeply.

I love watching my children learn, compete, laugh, struggle, and grow. I love cheering at soccer games, helping with school, having serious conversations, and enjoying the ordinary moments that rarely seem important until years later.

Fatherhood is not simply a title. It is a calling.

Scripture tells fathers⁠ to raise their children with discipline and instruction without provoking them to anger. That requires patience, humility, sacrifice, and time. Fathers will not always get it right. I certainly do not. But children need fathers who keep showing up.

So today, I want to thank the fathers who do exactly that.

Thank you to the dad working a second job, the dad coaching after a long day, the dad rebuilding after failure, the dad raising children through illness, divorce, financial stress, grief, or uncertainty. Thank you to the fathers who stay present even when life is not fair and no one applauds them.

Public policy cannot manufacture good fathers, but it can make fatherhood harder.

Inflation, high taxes, occupational licensing, and regulations that raise the cost of housing, energy, and childcare force parents to work longer just to maintain the same standard of living. Government takes more from a father’s paycheck, raises the price of basic needs, and then offers programs to address the strain its policies helped create.

The criminal justice system can also separate fathers from their families when incarceration is used too quickly for minor, nonviolent offenses. Accountability matters, and serious crimes deserve serious consequences. But lawmakers should continue finding better ways to punish wrongdoing, require restitution, and protect public safety without unnecessarily removing fathers from their homes, jobs, and children.

I am grateful for legislators working to reduce these barriers. A truly pro-family government should restrain spending, lower obstacles to work, expand educational freedom, and reserve incarceration for people who pose a genuine threat.

The goal is not to keep fathers from working. Work is part of providing, serving others, and setting an example. The goal is to give families more control over the tradeoffs between earning income and spending time together.

My dad lost much of his ability to work and travel freely, but he never stopped being my father. His presence shaped who I became.

Today, we celebrate fathers. Tomorrow, the responsibility continues.

Fatherhood should be honored on Father’s Day, but it must be lived every day through love, discipline, sacrifice, forgiveness, and presence. To every father who keeps showing up, no matter the situation: thank you.

Happy Father’s Day!

Vance Ginn, Ph.D.

President, Ginn Economic Consulting