11. The Parent’s Privilege: Gifting the Faith to the Children by Growing Up
- Gifting the Faith to the Children by Growing Up.
“Certainly you can see, can’t you, that children are God’s best gift, that they are an inheritance that is both a gift and a responsibility? That the fruit of the womb is a reward to you from the Lord Himself? (Psalm 127:3).
Lord Protect My Child – Susan Tedeschi
Good Parents Are Always Growing Up. Children are God’s supreme gift to the spouses in a marriage, and when that heavenly truth is not whole-heartedly accepted by the parents, then the parents are stuck with arrested development. It’s very difficult for immature parents to produce mature kids. To grow up means to grow in sacrificing one’s individual desires and ambitions and comforts for the sake of the family. To grow up is to embrace the responsibilities that come with being given such an unspeakable gift. To grow up is to recognize that God’s flesh and blood gifts at home have become a parent’s first calling in life, their primary vocation. To grow up is accept that one’s job and career have automatically been demoted to second priority the very day that sacred newborn was conceived in the mother’s womb. To grow up is to realize that there is nothing as deeply satisfying or profoundly fulfilling as raising a family. To grow up is for parents to pick up their cross of life-giving unselfishness daily, and carry it through each room in the house in order to love and nurture these divine gifts called children. And then, of all things, God designed parenthood to get hit with the whole challenge of a child’s adolescence! Just when the parents are thinking they’ve got this parent thing down, it’s back to the drawing board to try to figure it all out again at a different level. What happens if a parent refuses to keep learning how to responsibly nurture and sacrifice for their children at all their stages of development? When parenthood is not understood as a privilege designed by Creator God, and the children are not welcomed into the lives of the parents as sacred gifts?
A Home Fit for Hell. Is it true that an immature father who refuses to grow up, to mature into someone approximating a responsible adult, can produce a hell of a home? C. S. Lewis’ book “The Screwtape Letters” is a series of conversations between two fallen angels in Hades, and strategies they can use to make a person truly fit for hell. It’s a classic, and I recommend it. I would like to take the same tack and bring you a podcast of a devil in hell who is trying to explain to his newly admitted men there how to nurture a miserable home, which is want they want in hell, of course. Naturally, everything they want you to do is exactly the opposite of what we truly want. So, stay on your toes here, everyone, as I explain how to make a home fit for hell.
Welcome, men! Welcome to your first podcast in Hades! A special welcome to you who are new to our world here deep beneath the planet earth. This is your first workshop with us here, and I am your House Devil. Just call me Snake. I know this topic is near and dear to your heart… How to have an unhappy home here in Hell. You no doubt have a lot of experience in this important issue and now that you are with us for a considerable time, we want to remind you of what was so successful in your earthly life in establishing homes that were truly hell on earth. We want you to have a home here that you can be proud of. We will remind you of what it takes to be absolutely miserable at home, and how to spread that misery to everyone who shares your home. Well, let’s get started. I’m pleased to see so many of you ready to take notes on your laptops and smart phones. Perfect! That’s a good sign! In fact, that takes us straight to our first helpful hint:
(1.) Be a slave to technology. It’s best if your nose is always in your smart phone or laptop. Make sure your family always sees you with your eyes looking downward into the many types of technology available to us. If there’s anything new in the techie world, take it, grab it, use it. It would be wonderful if you constantly have earbuds safely settled into your inner ears as well, so you can tune others out. It’s so much easier interacting with technology than with real people, right? So be heavily involved in social media and the hourly news cycle. You don’t want to miss out on the latest outrageous opinion or life-altering news. And this is important, men: the more hours you spend on Netflix movies or video games, the better. Virtual reality is so much more exciting than the real thing. Your wife will love it, your kids will love it, trust me. Just be constantly entertained by machines, and you’ll never regret it. All of this will help you keep a nice safe distance from your children, and goes far in keeping eye contact with your wife at a minimum.
(2.) Be competitive in the home. Try to win in everything, every time. Make it your goal to outdo your wife in everything that happens during the day. Make sure you thoroughly dominate your children at checkers, every time! Keep your bragging rights and masculine pride at all costs. True love is a competition, so you need to prove yourself a better lover, more insightful, a better shopper, more compassionate. a harder worker, a better parent than your neighbors, and more spiritual than your wife. After your domestic wins, be as patronizing and condescending as possible. That will go far in keeping everyone in their place.
(3.) Seek self-fulfillment first. Don’t concern yourself with what might be fulfilling to your wife or satisfying to your children. Remain blind to what might be life-giving to her or to the kids. If you accidentally stumble onto what inspires and satisfies you wife, just ignore it and move on. If a rewarding experience for a child conflicts with your schedule, you come first of course. After all, it’s your wife’s job to discover what is life-giving for you, right? And it’s your children’s work at home to make you the center of attention, always. If your wife does indeed discover something life-giving, make sure you don’t support it. It might be in conflict with your own self-fulfillment. Put simply, everything in the home revolves around you, at all times.
(4.) Do things separately. Enjoy yourself by yourself. Make sure you have enjoyable experiences apart from your family. After all, you were born an individual, so remain an individual. Don’t develop any kind of common history with your wife and children, because you’d have to share all that pleasure. Don’t worry about providing any unforgettable family experiences that would provide meaningful memories for everyone. One of our favorite sayings here in hell is, ‘Pleasure shared brings half the pleasure.’ Remember that.
(5.) Be devoutly ambitious. Be single-minded as you make sure your career is the driving force in your life. Job advancement is priority #1, more important that anything in your personal life, like faith, wife, children, friends. Orient your whole life around your work. Remember that your professional life makes the man. Embrace the idea that career success is the only thing that makes you truly happy and fulfilled. And if you are ever tempted to change jobs for the sake of your home life, resist that temptation at all costs! Or if your job requires several moves around the country, do it! The family can adjust for your better good, right? Always try to remember that your life is a complete failure if you don’t succeed at work.
(6.) Don’t be such a hero. Hide your strength, whether moral, physical, emotional, or mental. If a situation calls for you to be strong and “man up,” such as defending a loved one or offering a well-considered opinion, take a step back before you make a big mistake. Don’t let anyone at home see you rise to a challenge or do something difficult. Make sure your wife and family see you as someone who is always wishy-washy and passive, not someone who bravely advocates a righteous but unpopular cultural trend, or confidently stands up for what you believe in. Don’t do or say something that might offend someone, for hell’s sake. To be virtuous in word and deed is a sign of moral strength, so try to keep that to a minimum. Someone might think you’re trying to be uppity or holier than thou. If a heroic action is called for, such as facing off with a bully or stepping into danger for someone’s safety or welfare, take a deep breath and think twice about that. By all means, don’t go out on a limb and risk your popularity just to do the right but difficult thing. I’ll bet you discovered in your life on earth that life is too short to be heroic, right? Just keep that vital principle in mind here. You certainly don’t want it getting around that you are some type of macho, macho man!
(6.) Don’t trust your family. Be suspicious of everything your wife does, and be doubtful about everything your children say. Keep them on a short leash. Always be your wife’s jiminy cricket on her shoulder, making her accountable to you for things like family expenses, conversations with friends, how she spends her time, and what her motivations are for every action. Trust your wife and kids about as far as you can throw them, which is not very far since you are allowed to be as weak as you want here in hell. We firmly believe that your family will at some point appreciate the fact that you don’t trust them or their judgment. It’s probably best if they never learn to trust their own judgment. Your family will grow from this experience, believe me, and they will all come realize how thankful they are to have you help them stay on track in life.
(7.) Don’t be considerate. If you worry too much about pleasing your wife or making your kids happy, you’ll forget to please yourself, which is a mortal sin in Hell. Forget about doing the little things that make them happy. Don’t clean up after the kids, or give them playful bathtimes, or do anyone any favors. You don’t want to spoil them in any way. If you try to find those little things that shows you care for them, how are they going to learn to be responsible for their own messes in life? If you catch yourself doing something kind to someone in your family and not wanting any credit for it, don’t give in to temptation! If you begin to offer an undeserved favor or do something considerate that no one asked for, drop that whole idea forthwith! That’s something the Enemy would do!
(8.) Be ready to rumble, always. Be poised to have an argument. Make your default attitude be antagonism at all times. Turn every minor disagreement into a quarrel. Make a mountain out of every molehill. Never learn to distinguish a major deal from a minor deal. Instead, be hostile and make a major battle over every little tiff. Never stop to consider if an issue is worth the emotion put into it. And certainly, make sure you raise your voice whenever possible. That can be wonderfully intimidating and change the whole dynamic into your favor. You know the saying down here… When possible, add more heat to a discussion, not more light. Whenever possible at home, turn up the temperature.
(9.) Limit your sense of humor. Never be funny on purpose, never be intentionally light-hearted. For sure, never tell corny jokes or hilarious stories. Try not find the humor in a serious situation. Make your wife feel guilty or self-conscious when she is funny, quick-witted or clever. Try to maintain a grave demeanor, try not to smile unless it’s from sarcasm. Of course, never laugh at yourself. If something happens to you that is genuinely amusing, change the subject, and don’t tell anyone. Laughter is not a medicine, it’s a curse. So never, never share a good-humored laugh together. It’s a slippery slope to downright joy.
(10.) Waste your money carefully. Gambling is a wonderful way to waste money. So are designer clothes and adult toys. Just focus on wasting your money on things you don’t need, things where you are the primary beneficiary. Spending your hard-earned money on the least, the lost, and the left out is not appropriate at any time. That me-first principle stood you well on earth, so continue with that mindset here. Your selfish lifestyle is one of the things that brought you to us, so keep that ball rolling! The more you spend on things and not people, the better. Unless the person is you, of course.
(11.) Don’t share friends. Dislike your wife’s friends as much as possible. Remind her often what poor decisions she makes in developing friendships. Don’t share your friends with your wife, either. Heaven help us if you actually enjoyed the company of others with your wife. What would that lead to? And don’t get involved with the friends of your children. That would be going down to their level, which is to be avoided at all costs. Remember, all dads in hell are above it all, above friendships, above love for children, above love for wife, everything. Here in Hades, don’t forget that somehow it all comes back to you, doesn’t it?
(12.) Think Secretly. Don’t ever let your wife or kids know what you are thinking. Don’t share your thoughts either. Be a mystery, a closed book at all times. Make everyone at home guess what’s on your mind, and keep them guessing. Keep your privacy intact when it comes to sharing ideas, thoughts, feelings, opinions. What your wife doesn’t know won’t hurt her, and it’s the same with your children. Give the impression that you are profound and deep in your quiet thinking. You can fool a lot of people that way, including your wife and children. Resist the temptation to do a little thinking out loud. You know you’re on the wrong track in hell if you find yourself saying, “I may be wrong here, but…” Hell forbid! Don’t ever admit to that!
(13.) Be stubborn. Never give in. Don’t admit you could be mistaken. Dig in your heels over every disagreement, whether significant or not. Certainly, in your stubbornness, never apologize. It only makes you look weak. If you admit you made a mistake, your wife or kids could use that against you and never trust you again. So stand your ground, and pretend you are infallible. Here in Hades, it’s only the fools who are the teachable ones.
(14.) Don’t be affirming. Don’t ever compliment your wife in any way, whether it’s for her giftedness, her personality, her personal strengths, her appearance, her accomplishments. Don’t affirm your wife, because it might just go to her head, and she’ll come expecting it from you every day. That would be a disaster for your unhappy home. And certainly don’t ever adore your children for how the Enemy made them in His image. Don’t cherish the uniqueness of each child, don’t ever let words of blessing or affirmation come out of your mouth with wife or kids. Our boss here in hell is the Accuser, not the Affirmer!
(15.) Don’t grieve. When something really bad happens, like if you have lost a loved one, don’t lower yourself to grieve with your wife. You can’t let her see you as weak and vulnerable. If you let a tear slip down your face, make sure it’s a meaningless tear, an empty tear, a tear that doesn’t really reflect your true emptions. Don’t allow your wife to support you in your grief. Don’t give her the privilege of helping you in your weakness. That’s not what a real man does. And certainly don’t come alongside your children when they experience the difficult things that can happen in life. Don’t try to be like the Enemy and comfort them and share their unhappiness. Never do what the Spirit of the Enemy does, which is demonstrate true love to someone who is suffering.
(16.) Make Your Home Unsafe. One of the Enemy’s strategies is to help each person nurture a home that is a refuge, a shelter, a safe place in a rather turbulent and unpredictable world. So, for Hell’s sakes, don’t let that happen! Create a climate of fear, for crying out loud! Don’t let your home become a house of peace, of all things, where each person at home is secure in the love and acceptance found there. Make sure your wife and kids don’t feel safe from your criticism of their opinions, or their performances in sports, or their grades in school, or their human mistakes as they try to figure out what it means to grow up. Make sure the mom feels unsafe and insecure with your unjust critical remarks. In fact, maybe the best way to say this is that you men have to make sure you cultivate a critical spirit in the home. And if someone needs to be embraced and emotionally protected at home, may it never be so! If someone comes home and needs a sense of healing from a wounded spirit, forget it! They’ve got to toughen up, right? What does your family think a home is, some sort of hospital, or refuge, a shelter from the strong winds in the world? Make sure your family realizes that the home is not the place where they will find a warm acceptance in this fiercely unaccepting world where rejection seems to be hiding around every corner. Make sure your home is the first place your children see an unfriendly face!
(17.) Become Addicted to Pornography. That’s right, men, I saved the best for last. Here in hell, we have found that pornography has many outstanding benefits: (1.) It is an addiction that develops into an obsession that is tremendously difficult to break; (2.) It rewires your brain in such a way that you become increasingly self-centered, distant from others, prone to depression and anxiety, and lose your willpower and self-control; (3.) It causes you to think of women as sex objects and not made in the image of our Enemy in heaven; (4.) It warps your appreciation of pure feminine beauty; (5.) It makes it very difficult, if not close to impossible, to have healthy, self-giving romantic relationships; (6.) It gives you a flawed understanding of masculinity and manhood; (7.) It makes it difficult for you to distinguish between love and lust; (8.) It increasingly separates you from the ones who love you the most, such as wife, children, parents, siblings, friends and grandparents; (9.) It enables you to trade your 12 minutes of pleasure for a lifetime of loneliness, emptiness, and twisted thinking; (10.) It gives you increasing cravings that continue to prove unsatisfying at a deep level; (11.) It enables you to support a multi-billion-dollar business dependent on degrading and using women who then lose all sense of dignity as a sacred human being; (12.) It makes you develop an impure, warped version of God’s great gift of sexuality; (13.) It numbs you to the glorious reality that surrounds you. Isn’t this a wonderful gift of our Boss here in hell? I ask you, what’s there not to like? The awesome thing is that the harmful effects of pornography on mental health are well-documented, yet the temptations are too much for too many, even followers of the Enemy. Obscenity, depravity, you men have made a really great start on this sick activity above on earth, and isn’t it cool that here in hell you can watch pornography 24/7?
So that’s it for now, noble men of Hell. I hope my hints at making your homes as deplorable and unhappy as possible here in your new place will go far in establishing a Hell that’s worthy of its name. Remember that special time on earth, during the time of the Judges, when “everybody did what was right in his own eyes”? That’s what we’re looking for men! So go to it! We’ll see you tomorrow with the next in the series for men only. Tomorrow’s topic will be… “Exciting new ways technology can control your life!” You don’t want to miss that! Next week we’ll have a fascinating series of podcasts, how-to’s on building your unhappy home: How to become useless around the house; How to pretend to take your wife seriously; and How to manage your work-life balance so that work always wins. Signing off for now, your House Devil, Snake.