The Quadfathers' Daily Devotional for Domestic Dads
So much has changed in the Forty plus years I can account for.
Things once unheard of are now the stuff of everyday life. TV's
have color and I have kids. They ride in an SUV watching DVDs on
the LCD TV wearing wireless IF headphones while I listen to
cable TV. Did I mention cable TV? Oh well, they watch as I
listening to my favorite cable TV station on my satellite radio
which doesn't fade out as we blast about our family busyness
down the backwoods and back roads of our Blue Ridge mountain
home.
I often wonder how my dear old snuff dipping; bonnet wearing
Brethren Grandmother would relate to our twenty-first century
life. I especially wonder what she would think of the Quads. Did
I mention we have a set of Quads? I sometimes get a bit lost in
all the commotion and repeat myself. Yep we have two wonderful
daughters currently aged 12 and 9 and a set of 3year-old
Quadruplets.
Our family does not fit your average demographics in nearly any
measure you use. Of course we have the six children in three
pregnancies.My wife besides being a gold medal mother is also a
very successful entrepreneur. All this has led me to be the
domestic dad to six. None of which were on our goals list when
we did our pre-marital counseling. When asked I prefer the title
"Quadfather". Just how Granny would do with all this interests
me because of the varied reactions and odd comments I have
encountered from others over the past few years. Granny would be
heartened to find that we have stuck close to the Faith. Not the
Brethren faith but more of the Inter-denominational, new
Apostolic- Reformational, you- don't- need- a- suit- and- tie,
beard or bonnet, Spirit-filled Christianity. Then again this and
our African-American Pastor could do more to swamp her born in
the eighteenth-century boat than all the other changes combined.
Yes things have changed. I feel fortunate to have been born deep
enough back into the 1900's to have seen the old folks and old
ways. Yet still to be young enough to be shoulder deep in my
kid's formative and most unique era.
I will never forget my Granny forcefully asserting that the
first Moon Walks were staged in Hollywood back when I was
formative and the 69 mustang was a new ride. Nor will I forget
the times she lost herself in the titanic struggle of good and
evil to be found on the TV Wrasslin and would insist with equal
ferocity that these events were real and important for our
personal sanctity and national well being.
Perhaps Granny did have a hard time with the changing times
around her but I do know she had a firm grasp on the real stuff,
the serious truth and importance of God and Family and the need
to make them the priority and keep them together.
Granny was a stop gap blessing in my life. By the time I was
fourteen my mom had two divorces and a nervous break down. About
40% of my growing up was done in a single mother household with
Granny at home. My other Grandmother was similarly raising
several of her Grandchildren. Both were widowed before I could
walk and I never had a close or long lasting father/son
relationship during any of this period. I guess in many
unfortunate ways our family was ahead of our times. But Granny
hung in there trying to impart by deed and word to me these two
important fundamental truths along with other insights that
today are wry remembrances about herbs and roots, phases of the
moon, planting and the struggle to purge evil from our shore
through TV Wrasslin.
I would have loved to see Granny's reaction to much of the
technological and unique dynamics of our time and special
family. I can not help but believe she would see and understand
how the two most serious truths are very much a part of the
fabric of this family. They are what matter. They are the
tradition we have embraced and will not lose hold of.
It has been these very challenges and unusual twists the Lord
has seen fit to inject into our lives that have served most to
remind me of what I had missed .In remembering I can see and
appreciate what Granny was trying to insert so long ago in the
confusion and isolation of a broken, blended and re-broken
childhood. In this process and between many long nights and
endless diaper changes, I have been afforded the opportunity to
be the type of dad I never had.
In bringing me to the choice of being a dad on a scale here to
unheard of, I have found a loving and benevolent Father bringing
about healing and restoration that I had not realized was needed
in my life. Though some may think we are out of order or to be
even pitied. As all some seem to see are commitments and
expenses that would lower their lifestyles, limit their
entertainment opportunities and brings challenges to their
perceptions about Christian family life. I believe I have seen
the miraculous and that I have heard the solid steady heart beat
of The Father in two things, priorities and in order, God and
Family. Not roles or religion, vicarious fulfillment,
expectations of tradition or self-realization and satisfaction.
All of which seem to haunt so much of my generation as we have
become "The Parents".
This series, if it ever sees the light of day is my prayerful
effort to share into this parenting world of broken, blended,
re-broken, single and wounded families the healing, purpose and
encouragement that seasons can seem hard and dark but they
change, and that we can find our greatest insight and
understanding of God's direction and faithfulness changing us
and impacting through us into the lives of the little ones that
follow along after us. In our hard walked seasons as they toddle
towards their appointments with adult destiny beside us, we miss
much we might never recover if our focus is on ourselves, the
hard ships or on what or how well others are doing or a nagging
neurotic sense of perfection and performance. Seasons change, we
must embrace each one. Technologies change, people change, age,
grow and go but God, His Faithfulness to each generation and His
Fathers' heart never have and never will change or leave us .We
best imitate its beating in our priority and commitment to the
loving families we create, cherish and nurture.
Embrace with me if you will, the amusement, bemusement and
encouragements found on my road less traveled. I believe you
might find much there you recognize even if you're not a
Quadfather