What would you like all fathers to know?

That if you spank your children while you are even the slightest bit angry at them for being 'bad,' you are also teaching them that it is ok to hit other people, but only when you are bigger than them and in a position of authority, convinced of your own rightness.  You're probably going to also teach them to submit what they know in their heart to be true to the forces around them that seem more powerful as well-- if you end up spanking when you're angry.

That love is always a better teacher than pain and fear. 

That the job of a father is, in major part, to keep a home harmonious... fathers, if you are still married: love your wife, keep her happy.  LISTEN to her.  When a man stops really listening to a woman he's in love with, no matter how much they love eachother, they are doomed to become strangers.  It's only a matter of time. 

Caveat to the above, and easy, small example of how it is good for you too: if you listen to her during the rest of the week, probably she's much less likely to try and corner you during your favorite sporting event, and much more likely to agree to wait until it's over if she DOES try to engage in serious discussion while the home team's fighting the good fight.   Harmony is all pervasive, and the harmony of your family will become  your harmony, if you tend it like a garden.

That children are natural "followers," and that there's only one way to lead, by example.  the best thing you can do for your children, is always, simply, the right thing.  Make the best decisions you can.  Your children can pick up energy, keep yours well-fed and harmoniously humming. 

That a small and in ways undefined person is still a person.  They are complete.  They have tendencies, likes and dislikes as surely as you do.  And as you hated it when people tried to mold you as a youth, so they will.  You can let them be free, you can let them be them.  They'll love you more for it, too. 

That there is nothing tying you to the way your parents did things... you can let yourself be free, you can let yourself be you.  You'll love you the more for it, too. 

That your ego has no place in any interfaces with your child.  Their life is about them, not you.  Seek no pleasure from their 'accomplishments,' and you will feel no 'pain' in their failures.  That pleasure and pain is for them.  Seek pleasure in your accomplishment of letting them go to be them, and all will be well.  That's what people mean when they talk of loving children unconditionally.