Mom AND Dad are needed

At the time “Octo-Mom,” a single woman, announced her artificially-induced pregnancy of eight children, she said she did it because she “needed to have children.” Reflecting on that statement, my son Mark commented, “I would counsel any woman who thinks she doesn’t ‘need’ a man but she ‘needs’ to have children, to think, instead, of her children’s needs before she gets pregnant.”
“Children deserve a resident father. Here in America, men and women feel the right to pursue their desire to have children, without intending to have any sort of relationship with the child’s other parent.” He wrote to express his opinion that “anyone, man or women, who sets out to have children by themselves, intentionally depriving them from the start of their other parent, is wrong. Going into parenting intending to shortchange your children by eliminating one parent is not in their best interest and is an avoidable decision.”
I responded with an observation that men and women approach life differently and each gender offers children another perspective on just about everything.
Then, as I sorted through an accumulation of papers, I came across this piece my son Merton wrote one year for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.
“I learned how to make money from my dad;
I learned how to save money from my mom;
and as a family we share the treasures we have with each other.
I learned how to work hard from my dad;
I learned how to take it easy from my mom;
and as a family we love life: In the easy and the hard times.
I learned how to trust God from my dad;
I learned how to pray to God from my mom;
and as a family we watched the Lord hear us as we called on His name.
I learned that God created the world for us to study and enjoy from my dad;
I learned that God revealed the Bible for us to study and enjoy from my mom;
And as a family we watched the seasons change and we memorized Scripture after Scripture.
I learned be faithful from my dad;
I learned to grateful from my mom;
and as a family we worshipped in the Lord’s House.
I learned that discipline means you are loved from my dad;
I learned that generosity is how you love from my mom;
and as a family we inherit the blessings of our Father.
I learned to see that God is good from my dad;
I learned to taste His goodness from my mom;
and as a family we feasted at the Lord’s table.
I saw the footsteps of Jesus in my dad’s life;
I saw the handprint of the Lord in my mother’s;
and the Holy Spirit led us forward as a family.
I studied the growing humility of the Lord in our dad’s way of life;
I observed the steady honor of the Lord in our mom’s way of life;
and as a family we hosted the Lord in our homes when the poor, the confused, the rejected and those of us kids who tended to stray were given shelter.”
That pretty well summarizes our past 40 years as a couple and family. Neither my husband nor I will say it has been easy. We each have our own personal way of approaching family life, but somewhere between his ways and my ways, we worked our way for four decades.
Happy Anniversary, Joseph.