From a Father of Six
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Family on Thursday, June 18, 2009 10:12 PM
Rachel had an idea to have us each interview our fathers in honor of Father’s Day.
So I sent my dad some questions, and asked him to take a few minutes and answer them briefly so that I could post the answers here.
Well, if you’ve been reading Faith & Family for a while, you may have noticed I tend to go on a bit. I come by it honestly! My dad sent me answers to my questions that could have served as a whole feature-length article, and then some!
I edited, but couldn’t resist keeping most of what he said. In the twenty-seven years he’s been my father, I’ve found the guy to be very wise. I think his children shouldn’t be the only ones who benefit from that!
(If you’re interested, my dad also has his own blog.)
1) One of my best memories of growing up is of you reading aloud to us. If you could recommend one book or series for reading aloud to kids, what would it be, and why?
A word about reading to your children: don’t underestimate their attention spans. Children cherish parents reading to them, because it isn’t just the story, it’s the time they get with you. Too many parents presume their children won’t be able to handle complex reading material that doesn’t have a lot of colors and pictures, and this simply isn’t true. In my experience, children of three to four can handle books with more text, and four to five year olds can start to handle chapter books and follow a complex storyline.
As far as book series: we had lots of luck with the Chronicles of Narnia and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House books. Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories are good for the younger set, and his Jungle Books are suitable for the older ones. So are real life adventures, particularly biographies of saints, American founders, etc. Ignatius Press and TAN books both have youth-suitable volumes of the lives of saints. And don’t overlook suitably told classic mythology - for adults, the gold standard is Hamilton’s and Bulfinch’s, but there are many well-adapted versions for children and youth.
Let me conclude by saying that reading is more than just another entertainment option for children. By reading good literature, classic literature yourself, you connect to the very foundations of civilization. By reading to your children, you help connect them to both the ages that have gone before and to yourselves as parents. There’s a huge difference between a child spending an hour distracted by a video game or television program and an hour spent being read to by parents.
2) If a brand-new parent asked you for general advice about being a parent, and you had only five minutes to impart all the wisdom you’ve gained in twenty-seven years, what would you say?
My single most important piece of advice for parents is to trust their instincts regarding their children. Parents these days live under a shroud of fear, bombarded on all sides by experts telling them what to do or not do, which undermines their confidence. The implicit message is that parents cannot trust themselves with a vital job like raising children, therefore they are relegated to implementing the expert-developed and approved childraising system. Parents are kept in constant fear as to whether they’re executing the proper steps in the proper order, and making allowances for this or that factor, or whatever. Their presence and value as parents is totally discounted; they are merely seen as the most immediate implementors of The System - a role which they are expected to gradually relinquish to educators and other social agents as time goes by.
This is garbage. The people most suitable to decide what any child needs are his parents. Nobody else knows that child as intimately, nobody else loves that child as well, nobody else has that child’s interest so at heart. Parenting is an instinctive, natural thing that rises up out of that intense love and devotion. If a child needs encouragement, or discipline, or instruction, or affection, the very best people to decide what form that should take are the parents right there with that child - not a panel of credentialed experts participating in a seminar at a faraway university. When raising our children, we never gave any credence to “childraising experts”, and just did what came naturally.
3) Have there been any single defining moments in your time as a father? Moments that greatly clarified or changed your goals or approach? Please share!
I can’t say I’ve had any dramatic, flash-of-lightning moments that suddenly and radically changed my identity as a father. In my experience, the moments that turned out to be – well, momentous – were at the time minor things that just seemed to be sensible and obvious.
One example is our family prayer life. My wife and I had resolved to make exposure to Scripture a regular part of our family life, but had struggled with the best way to bring this about. In 1989, about when my eldest [Ed. Note: That’s me!] was seven years old, I discovered the Liturgy of the Hours – the regular cycle of prayer and Scripture that is used by priests, monks, and others. I started saying some of the daily offices as a personal devotion, and found them very helpful for bringing form and structure to my prayer time. I’d say them as part of my morning devotions, and again in the evening.
I found the best time for evening prayer was when my wife was cuddled with the little ones, singing our youngest to sleep. One day it occurred to me: why are we doing this separately? Couldn’t we say evening prayers together as a family, even if all the kids do is listen to me read? So we began saying the Evening Office – vespers – together as a family. It soon became a central part of our family life, possibly even more than family dinner. We got prayer books for all the kids as they got old enough (in fact, finding your prayer book under the Christmas tree once you were old enough to read was a major excitement!) The intercessions included everyone in the room adding in their own personal petitions. The kids had favorite readings and psalms that they eventually memorized. The fifteen minutes of daily prayer at bedtime has become one of the most stable and predictable part of our family’s life.
Print Blog
Email a FriendPost a Comment
By submitting this form, you give Faith And Family Magazine permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.
