Fathers & Children
June 25, 2007
I was reading a blog entry the other day posted on MetroDad about fathers and their kids. The point he made was that this day and age more than generations before us, the hearts of fathers have been turned towards their children. Apart from religious instigation this shift appears to have just happened with our Generation X and now spans the cultural and religious divide. Reading the old testament of the Bible (Shared by Judaism, Christianity and Islam) I was facinated to read Malachi 4:5-6 as he prophesied about the end times: Malachi 4:5-6 - 5 "See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. 6 He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse." I’m not an expert on end times anything but thought it was interesting enough to note.
I don’t see fathers’ hearts turning toward their children. What do you mean by that? Mostly I see men who don’t care much for their own children, breaking apart families, and not paying child support. I’m not trying to be argumentative, I just think about 200 years ago when a boy and his father worked together in the field every day, and it seems like the majority of men were closer to their children in the past than the majority of men are now.
Interestingly, the Mormons are very serious about this passage in the bible, and interpret it to mean that generations must be bonded together in the ritual they call “sealing”. They believe that in 1836 the prophet Elijah appeared to the Mormon leader Joseph Smith and taught him about sealing, proclaiming that they must build a temple to perform that sacred work. Besides going to the temple to seal themselves to their spouse, their children, and their parents, Mormons research their own genealogy along with others’ genealogy and perform the sealing rites as “proxies” for those who are dead.
Here’s a representative article discussing this belief:
http://www.lds.org/portal/site/LDSOrg/menuitem.b12f9d18fae655bb69095bd3e44916a0/?vgnextoid=f318118dd536c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=f7b89527730eb010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____
Comment by Ammon Larson — June 29, 2007 @ 4:48 am
I think there is a self-awareness about and in dad’s now that is unprecedented in other generations of how they impact and effect their children. Also an openess to be involved in what was once considered “women’s jobs”. Even men that spent the whole day in a field or any job with their kids may not have had the emotional connection that I see (some) dad’s striving for now.
So much more is talked about now and that communication can lead to such deeper relationships. That is cool.
(Hi Ammon!)
Comment by yourhotwife — June 29, 2007 @ 6:10 pm
Oops - sorry about the unedited spelling there…
Comment by yourhotwife — June 29, 2007 @ 6:11 pm