Become a High Agency Father

Defining the essence of good fathering has been challenging in recent times.

Words like protector or provider have been a popular framing, perhaps adding the quality of visionary-leader to the mix.

But I’ve found no single concept that does a better job than the simple phrase “high agency.”

Fathers must become high agency.

Men spend the first 30 years of their adult life (20-50) accumulating agency and the final 30 years of their life (50-80) stewarding that agency on behalf of their family and broader community.

High agency describes the degree to which you can happen to life versus life happening to you.

It was first popularized by Eric Weinstein on the Tim Ferriss podcast in 2016 as the way individuals question constraints and seek ways to overcome obstacles, asking, "When you’re told something is impossible, is that the end of the conversation, or does that start a second dialogue in your mind?”

George Mack posits a thought experiment for discovering the highest agency person in your life. Imagine you were trapped in a 3rd world prison and you’re allowed one phone call to the person who is most likely to help you find a way out, who do you call? In an ideal world, the answer for everyone would be the same: you would call your father. A father is the one person who has the most agency to be able to help and the one who loves you enough to spend every bit of his agency to set you free. God designed a world in which every man would have a father to turn to until the day when he became a grandfather.

Sadly, most people today are functional orphans. There is no loving, high agency father who is constantly conspiring to help set them free from whatever has them bound up. The cry of the orphan is “no one is coming to rescue me. I’m alone.”

God’s solution to rescue the fatherless was to ensure that creating human life requires a father. And ever since our Enemy has been trying to find ways to demean, destroy, or make redundant the role of the father.

The model for high agency fatherhood in Scripture is Abraham. When his nephew Lot was kidnapped and carted away by five local kings, he had enough resources within his household to ambush and free his nephew and everyone else who had been captured (Genesis 14).

But today’s fathers are encouraged to give away their agency. We no longer have a clear goal of achieving the kind of independence that will allow us to protect those under our care when unexpected tragedies strike.

In an industrialized economy, we pursue hyper-specialized professions that lead us to become the master of one trade instead of the generalized wisdom that comes from being the jack of all trades.

In Paul’s very first letter to a new church filled with Gentile believers less familiar with this clear goal laid out in the Torah, he tells them about this high agency goal explicitly:

“Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before. Then people who are not believers will respect the way you live, and you will not need to depend on others.” (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 NLT)

It may seem odd that in a community famous for its radical interdependence, Paul would advocate for accumulating the necessary resources to “not need to depend on others,” but this is a common, profound misunderstanding. You cannot become interdependent unless you’ve first achieved a level of independence. This makes interdependence a voluntary act and ensures there are sufficient resources to make interdependence an option. And who does the work of getting to this level of personal independence? That is the primary job description of a father.

And please remember this does not make dependence morally wrong. Paul does not say everyone must achieve this level of agency, but that everyone should “make it your goal”. So is it? Is this one of your goals?

No area will reveal whether you believe this idea or not more than how you approach work. Fathers and mothers are told to use work to pursue personal fulfillment. They may look at a career path that is designed to take more and more of their agency away the older they get and make great sacrifices to follow that path out of self-focused ambition. This violates your duty as a father and future grandfather of a multigenerational family. Your family needs you to maximize your agency, not maximize your feelings of fulfillment.

If you’re wondering whether or not the work path you're on will provide you with enough agency, then simply use the grandfather test. If that path you are on makes it likely that, in your mid-fifties, you have to ask a manager for permission to spend extra time with your grandchildren, that's a low agency pathway. It’s time to consider a new path forward. You are in violation of a clear command of Scripture by not making it your goal to grow less dependent.

So how do we fulfill this command today? It starts by simply making it a goal. We chart the path we are on and we steer that path toward greater agency, not greater dependence. We cultivate alliances, accumulate resources, multiply skills, and avoid every kind of bondage. This is fatherhood 101. Get free, maintain your freedom, and be prepared for the moment when your phone rings and it's time to use your agency to free someone you love.