It is easier for a father to have children than for children to have a real father.

The saying contrasts biological paternity with the moral and relational work of fatherhood. Having children can be a matter of circumstance, but being a “real father” implies sustained presence: protection, guidance, sacrifice, and emotional responsibility. Read in a Christian ethical frame often associated with John XXIII, it also echoes the idea that authority is proved by service rather than status. The line functions as a critique of absentee or merely nominal fathers and as an appeal to children’s need for dependable, formative love. Its aphoristic structure makes it widely reusable in pastoral and social commentary about family life and responsibility.