After the death of his son Eric in a mountain climbing accident, Nicholas Wolterstorff summed up the dilemma of the grieving parent in his book, Lament for a Son (Eerdmans): “I have no explanation. I can do nothing else than endure in the face of this deepest and most painful of mysteries. I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and resurrecter of Jesus Christ. I also believe that my son’s life was cut off in its prime. I cannot fit these pieces together. I am at a loss.”

The loss of a child is more common than many realize. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage. Each year almost 45,000 babies in the United States are stillborn or die from infant loss, while close to 20,000 children and adolescents die from a variety of causes, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Factoring in complicated griefs like infertility and the death of adult children means that grieving parents are within every community.

Yet fathers are often overlooked in their grief. Results from the 2020 study “Grief and Bereavement in Fathers After the Death of a Child,” published by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), show that most research on parental grief focuses on mothers (who also receive the most attention from family, friends, and health care professionals), while fathers tend to cope by not talking about their children’s deaths, returning to work, and keeping busy.

Kelly Farley, author of Grieving Dads: To the Brink and Back (Grieving Dads LLC), writes that men are “expected to toughen up, get back to work, take it like a man, and support their wives.” But the AAP’s 2020 bereavement research shows that such strategies are inadequate in helping fathers navigate their grief over time.

In a culture where men are socialized from childhood to be strong and stoic, how can the church reach out to grieving fathers?