When I was 8 years old, my father thought that my brothers and I should learn to do some "real work". Since we lived in the suburbs, "real work" meant that we were going to the farm to plant 5000 pine tree seedlings -- by hand, in the dead of winter.

My two brothers and I were each outfitted with a bucket of seedlings and a "dibble" (a metal tool about 3 feet long with a "t-bar" handle and a wedge shaped blade). We were assigned rows in the large open field, and told to take 4 steps between each seedling so they would be adequately spaced. But that still left the problem of veering off to either side.

My dad solved this by erecting two straight poles at the end of each row, one about fifteen feet behind the other. He told us that when we were ready to plant a tree, we should stop and look up toward the end of the row. As long as the two poles lined up one behind the other, then we knew that we were right on track.

As fathers, each day we face a tremendous number of choices about how to invest our time, how to interact with our kids, how to discipline, how to get time alone with our wives, what leisure activities to engage in, and on and on. In the midst of this bewildering array of options, we need something to help us stay on track. Just like when I planted those trees many years ago, we need a goal that we can look toward to be sure that our fathering is not veering off course.