A father’s active presence is crucial for his son’s development, especially in adolescence. Today, however, the father-son bond is one of society’s most damaged and damaging relationships. Many fathers are physically or psychologically absent from their families, often with tragic results.

Despite the influence of the women’s movement, parenting in most modern families remains organised asymmetrically so that the mother is the primary caregiver and the father is more remote, often due to his pursuit of career success. This program is based on the principle that it is absolutely necessary for fathers to assist in the developmental growth of their adolescent sons in order to help them to become mature men. Without a father’s assistance, the son is more likely to grow up with a limited sense of what it means to be a man. Also, the failure of fathers to initiate their sons into manhood is a source of deep and lasting woundedness in the father-son relationship.

Between Fathers and Sons is a program for sharing faith, strengthening bonds and growing into manhood