Would a father who focused only on making his family as happy as possible be an overly indulgent one? I think the answer depends both on the definition of happiness and the method by which the father promotes this happiness. We’ve all observed fathers who cannot stand the sight of their children’s tears and cave to any demands in the name of keeping their wife and children happy. By contrast, most of us have also seen fathers who prize order, discipline, and respect for his authority. We easily assume, at first glance, that these two fathers have opposite parenting goals.

A closer look, however, reveals that the two dads might not substantially differ in what they desire for their families. The difference lies in how far ahead they look and how deeply they penetrate into the mysteries of human nature. A good father, in the end, desires only his family’s happiness—but the right kind, in the right way, and over the right time frame.

The overly indulgent father suffers from shortsightedness and a false understanding of human nature (assuming that his indulgent behavior is something more than a mask for a selfishness incapable of tolerating unpleasant pushback). He imagines that the look of delight flowering on a child’s face when they receive yet another cookie expresses true happiness. His work, then, becomes a matter of busying himself accumulating such delights as cookies and juice and, later, cars and cell phones for his children.

This kind of happiness is strenuously attained, tenuously maintained, and jealously guarded in a vault of material goods and wealth. The father labors lest the “happiness” run dry—thus, more trips and video games for the kids, more clothes and furniture for the wife.

This is why such fathers and husbands become addicted to work even when it absents them from the home for long periods of time. If happiness is, after all, a long inhalation of pleasures, then a father’s job is to keep them coming, to prevent the drink of life from running dry. Having sacrificed much for the comfort of his family, such a man experiences bewilderment when he finds he is a mere vagrant to his wife and children, who seem increasingly troubled, rebellious, and unhappy.

So was he wrong to aim at happiness for his family? Certainly not. But parvus error in principio magnus est in fine—”a small mistake in the beginning is great in the end.” A misunderstanding of how best to guide his family toward happiness precipitated the disaster. The poor, worn out, dried-up middle-aged man knows something has gone wrong, but he doesn’t know what.

His children seem emotionally and intellectually absent, attention locked on the phones he bought them, only coming alive around their friends or when posing for social media. He is vaguely aware that they are not telling him things, that they are involved in activities online and in the real world that aren’t wholesome, yet he doesn’t know how to correct it. After all, they are just seeking happiness in the way he has taught them.

The reality is not that they have received too much happiness; rather they have received too little. They are overfed yet undernourished. They asked him for bread, and he has given them a serpent.

The father in this story misunderstood happiness because he misunderstood humanity. It is true that we are made for happiness. But we mistake what brings happiness in the long run.

In the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle deftly dismisses pleasure, wealth, and honor as the real causes of human happiness. All of these—which have seduced so many millions of people—do not bring real happiness, he says. Instead, he shows that human nature’s distinct quality is rationality, and in fulfilling this rational nature by acting reasonably, we will fulfill our purpose and find happiness. For Aristotle, this reasonableness is equal to virtue. In other words, by virtue we achieve happiness. In the Philosopher’s own words from Book I, Chapter 13, “Happiness is an activity of soul in accordance with perfect virtue.”

As it turns out, then, our hypothetical rule-enforcing father has the same goal as his overindulgent counterpart: happiness for his family. But they differ in that he is more farsighted, recognizing that patterns of self-indulgence—however pleasant in the moment—tell a story of tragedy over time. He understands that virtue is necessary to overcome tragedy, because only virtue is ultimately comic despite life’s circumstances. Only through learning self-restraint and virtue can one live a successful, happy, and fulfilling life.

The father (and mother) bear the responsibility to instill virtue in their children from the earliest years because something in our nature continuously diverts us into the ruts of selfishness and instant gratification. Toddlers do not teach themselves self-control. So a good father disciplines because he loves and desires happiness for his sons and daughters.

Still, that road too presents its own perils. The stricter father can lose sight of the goal of his actions as easily as the overindulgent one. Rule-following can become an end in itself or the result of a fear-based reaction to life’s danger and challenges. Rather than a means to fuller living and joy, it becomes merely a scrupulous flight from evil.

Worse yet, some fathers set up their own authority, discipline, and well-ordered life as a golden calf before which their households must bow down. This confusion of means and ends can crush children’s souls as the joy of life seeps away like water in a drought. The cessation of joy and a reasonable light-heartedness from family life may offer even more dangers than too much laxity.

In short, fathers must aim to make their families happy—remembering what true happiness means. Yet fathers and husbands must not neglect the little ways of spreading short-term joy and happiness, too (so long as long-term happiness isn’t hazarded in the process): a smile, a joke, an unexpected treat for the kids or bouquet for the wife.

And rising above all these points is the consideration that fathers and husbands must aim to be happy themselves if they wish to impart joy to their families, both in the big-picture sense of living out a virtuous and self-restraining life, and in the specific sense of making an effort in the little things, practicing indomitable daily cheerfulness.

That road is by no means an easy one. And that is why it takes a real man to be a good father and husband.

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