This newsletter is from a book by Tim Kimmel called Little House on the Freeway, and while it speaks a challenge specifically to parents of young children, I hope those in our church whose children have grown can read it and realize its importance. I firmly believe that if veteran parents and our church clearly assented to and willingly reiterated this message, families of young children would listen and benefit. Here is Kimmel’s challenge:
Dads, if we think we can be effective fathers while at the same time spending [most of our waking] hours a week climbing the ladder of success, we’re kidding ourselves. If we think we can dump the responsibility of raising our children off on our partner while we hide behind the “bread winner” mask, we’re hallucinating. Being an effective father requires personal involvement. We cannot – we dare not – delegate our parenting responsibilities to someone else and feel that we have fulfilled our calling to our children. It just doesn’t work.
Kimmel then goes on to speak to moms and to challenge them to question why they are working outside the home – is it because they have no choice due to their husband’s unemployment or a divorce or widowhood? Or is it out of another, more material motivation? What Kimmel does not do, and what I wish he would, is ask husbands too why their wives work, because a husband’s desire for a house or nice car can be as much to blame for a wife “having” to work as a wife’s desire for material security or comfort. Kimmel continues with this, which I believe can be directed to both a husband and a wife:
Work, with its ego benefits and extra income, must be weighed against the long-term needs of our children. When it comes to this issue, there are no easy answers. Loving takes time and time requires sacrifice – somewhere. It gets painful when the sacrifices cut into lifestyle. The lifestyle sacrifices don’t have to be forever, but they may have to be for now. . . .
Those couples who are willing to swim against the current tide of cultural pressures are going to have a reward waiting for them. They may not be able to dress as well, drive as nice a car, go out as much, or have as nice a house as those who ride with the contemporary flow. But they will have the blessing of knowing they gave their kids what their kids needed most – THEIR PARENTS’ ATTENTION.
When we stand before God someday, we’re going to have to give an account. We may have chosen, as moms and dads, to let someone else do the bulk of the rearing and value programming of our kids. But it is we who will have to give an account for our children.
May this message be one we as fathers hear, and one we are willing to utter to families in our church.
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Kimmel, Tim. Little House on the Freeway. Sisters, OR: Multnomah: 1994.
Original image: ‘Father & Son‘
www.flickr.com/photos/14318462@N00/14029377
by: Phil Hilfiker
Released under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License
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