“What is a child’s obligation to his parent?”
Malcolm Gladwell asked this question in a podcast (Revisionist History: The Basement Tapes, Aug 16, 2017) I was listening to the other day … and it stuck in my mind all day, all night. Perhaps because Father’s Day was approaching.
I have never been a dad, never will be. I cannot get into the thoughts of a man who is a father but I do know what it is to be a child of man, a daughter of a father. So, maybe I can relate with Mr. Gladwell’s question … maybe we all can.
Fathers are not all the same, not all equal. Not all fathers are good (nor are they all bad). Is the obligation of every child equal?
These are questions I have been asking … hard questions. I have come to few conclusions, but one keeps coming back to me.
As children of our fathers, we have no power to change what has been done to us … he good, the bad and the ugly. We are only responsible for ourselves and our actions. As adult children of our fathers, we are the only ones responsible for what we do with what our fathers have given to us.
“I cannot go back and relive my life, it just is what it is, but I can see to it that the grace that the Lord has poured on me is not in vain. That is my hope.”
Beth Moore
I remember a time, a really busy time in my life, our home and family. Our kids were involved in various activities, we had two international students living with us, hubby was a church pastor in constant demand, I had a job as well as being the head wrangler of all persons and pets under our roof. Tired was my never-ending experience of life. One day I received a letter from my dad, who I loved and who I knew loved me. In the letter he got real with me about his (and my mum’s) life. They were lonely, they missed me and he was asking that I make more effort to be in contact with them.
I will be honest, my first response as I read his words was, dad, you have no idea what my life is like right now. Then I realized, I had no idea of what his life is like … until he told me. So, I quietly vowed to pull my big girl pants us and just honor him/them. Not because they deserved it, so much as honoring him was more about me, about who I was and who I wanted to be.
It may be that you have had a father that was horrible, hurtful, even dangerous. And maybe your best obligation to him, is to learn from him and his actions.
Or it may be that your relationship with your father disintegrated over time and you aren’t even sure where the downturn began. As an adult, what is your best obligation to him?
What I am trying to say is, as adult children, perhaps our obligation to our fathers … it is not dependent on them, it is dependent on us.
itsawonderfilledlife 