As a child grows older and begins making cognitive decisions about their values and how they view themselves and the world around them, the Family unit has an immense and clearly irreplaceable part to play in influencing who that person will become. Dads, in particular, can often be viewed by their kids as the law or the judge, jury and executioner. When an overprotective father starts putting boundaries around his teenage girl who wants to go out to a lake house for the night with a big group of friends he knows very little about, all of the sudden this judiciary platform starts being challenged in all sorts of new ways. If he were to refuse her the permission to go he may be called Hitler, Stalin or Mussolini and be accused of being the WORST DAD EVER. A good father stands his ground amidst such fledgling accusations and potential insecurities one might experience being labelled as such.
Now the same father may put in place seemingly harsh and strict rules for his budding teenager in other areas. Lets take again the area of drug abuse. He can lay out clear boundaries and consequences for those boundaries and really drive the point home that if these rules are broken, that there will be a price to pay. However, if and when a child of this same father, the one who puts explicit parameters around their child, happens to observe that he isn't living out of the same values he is demanding of them... the result is usually catastrophic.
Do you remember that commercial in the 80's? The one with the the dad sitting his teenage son down on his bed. He confronts him and pulls out this little wooden box full of assorted drug paraphernalia in it. He begins to drill his son on where he learnt to use this stuff, all with such firm disbelief and seemingly righteous indignation. He is shocked and angry and demands an answer from his resistant and rebellious teenage boy. The son finally blurts out that iconic and unforgettable statement
"I learned it from watching you alright! I learned it from watching you!!!"
The narrator then closes with the almost as famous line "Parents who do drugs, have kids who do drugs."
Now this doesn't mean that a loving Father who walks the walk as well as talks the talk may not still have a child who rebels and does all sorts of terrible things to themselves as well as their friends and family. There is obviously no perfect way to raise a child and ensure with 100% certainty that they will never get into trouble or suffer or ever be in pain. The truth is though, this generation is in this epidemic because there isn't a strong balance of both Authority and Influence. We either have parents who shelter and squash the life out of their children or just as worse, we have parents who completely check out and leave their precious one's to their own devices to sort out what works and what doesn't.
I'm not a father yet, no wife or even a GF at this stage. Over the last 3 years or so an insatiable desire and hunger to be a loving father has been growing somewhere deep in my soul. I don't understand the difficulties yet of the balance between being the "white house" and being like “Mike” ( read my last post for reference). I do know that until God brought people into my life that brought both strong boundaries as well as amazing, loving and generous examples of a life I actually wanted to live, that I would never grow the way God intended for me to grow.
I’ve seen some pretty amazing examples of parenting over the years by some pretty incredible people. I don’t always see what happens behind closed doors and I’m sure there are moments that even the greatest of the great families wouldn’t be proud of. But I’ve had the privilege of witnessing first hand fathers and mothers who straddle the line of authority and influence with vigorous commitment. Parents who understand how crucial their roles are in the different stages of their children’s lives. It’s easy to sit back and look at our stories or our own families and point out all the times we’ve been let down or shortchanged.
I believe the enemy LOVES it when we do that.
He loves it when we look back and pinpoint all the discouragement and spend as much time as possible stewing over these things. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t dig deep into our wounded pasts and allow the Healer to get involved. God the Father is the kind of father who wants to redeem all of our hurts and pains caused by the Family. He cares deeply that a lot of us have had a bad run. His love and caring isn’t just expressed with embracing us in our pain but it goes further than that. He shows us the way forward, he shows us how to redeem the beauty of Family regardless of what has occurred in the past. He shows us how to navigate this tight rope of Authority and Influence in arguably the most crucial institution on the planet...
FAMILY
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