Saturday, May 10, 2008

fathers that provoke their children

Today I came across a blog post about The Top Ten Ways that Parents Provoke their Children to Wrath. I felt sad when I read it because so many of the points in the list were things my father did. I remember my father preaching at us that we needed to obey our parents because it says so in the Bible. I also remember, probably after I had learned to read, thinking that that same part of the Bible tells fathers not to provoke their children to wrath. I didn't know if my father had provoked me to wrath. I had to hide or stuff any wrath I might have had at that point. But I do remember thinking that it wasn't fair that my father preached to me about obedience. (I was very obedient and wanted to be, as well as I knew if I weren't I would be beaten.) But I also felt that it wasn't fair that my father didn't pay much attention to the rest of that part of the Bible, telling father how not to relate to their children so that it would produce bad feelings within them. I emailed my wife the link to that list and told her that I wish my father had done it differently. She emailed me back that she understood why I had said that. (We do live in the same house but we email each other things that we consider important or that the other person needs to know.)