...and I am not the man to give it to him. Sure, I have six kids, four young daughters and two sons, but I rely on my cognitive faculties on a minute by minute basis and have no real grand plan or agenda to 'steer them on the right path'.
Things change so fast these days. One day, it's fun to shoot toy guns off in the living room without a care in the world, then there is a mass shooting and you still shoot the toy guns, but the kids learn about the bad things in life. One day, the kids think mice are cute, then they watch in horror as you stupidly break the skull of one of them with a small hammer.
One day, Renaya (11) is a small baby and giggles while you cuddle her and chew her cheeks, and then, the next day, she's telling you that she's going to camp by herself for two weeks - and is excited about it! You see that you didn't give her the love of horses that so obviously oozes out of her face. SHE did that. You just lived, clothed her, fed her, gave her as much wisdom as you knew how, and now she's only a few years away from flying the nest.
Rearing a child right is not a science. You'll mess up. It's inevitable. But, as long as you let your kids know that you're not perfect, I'm pretty sure it will be okay. Remember, kids can smell disingenuous people and know a hypocrite when one walks past them in their sleep.
But I'm not qualified to answer James' letter to me. I'm just a dad. I'll let my other readers do it in the comments below.
Here is the text of his email:
Love,
I. C.
Things change so fast these days. One day, it's fun to shoot toy guns off in the living room without a care in the world, then there is a mass shooting and you still shoot the toy guns, but the kids learn about the bad things in life. One day, the kids think mice are cute, then they watch in horror as you stupidly break the skull of one of them with a small hammer.
One day, Renaya (11) is a small baby and giggles while you cuddle her and chew her cheeks, and then, the next day, she's telling you that she's going to camp by herself for two weeks - and is excited about it! You see that you didn't give her the love of horses that so obviously oozes out of her face. SHE did that. You just lived, clothed her, fed her, gave her as much wisdom as you knew how, and now she's only a few years away from flying the nest.
Rearing a child right is not a science. You'll mess up. It's inevitable. But, as long as you let your kids know that you're not perfect, I'm pretty sure it will be okay. Remember, kids can smell disingenuous people and know a hypocrite when one walks past them in their sleep.
But I'm not qualified to answer James' letter to me. I'm just a dad. I'll let my other readers do it in the comments below.
Here is the text of his email:
Hi Joe,
I stumbled upon your website after googling "Doug Phillips affair." We had a bunch of CDs by that guy but I didn't listen to that many. To be honest he creeped me out.
Do you know for sure it was underage girl? Are all the quiverfull pastors bad? I am always leery of fundamentalists but I never can explain why, they just make me mad, thats all. And usually the ones really adamant about something (don't be gay, be the leader of the family) are the ones hiding stuff. Anyone else I should watch out for?
After growing up in a Christian school with mandatory hair check (yes, they lined us up to make sure our hair didn't touch our collar) I thought I was done with fundamentalism but it keeps creeping up. Tell me what I need to know about some of these guys.
Also I have four small daughters, I want to make sure I don't steer them in the wrong direction.
JamesI like James already, but I want everyone else to chime in.
Love,
I. C.
