Scott commented describing his response to a struggling father he witnessed the other day.
A few days ago, I was at the store picking up a few items on my way home, and saw another dad, apparently doing the same thing. He had one very small child in his arms–throwing a tantrum, and two more in the shopping cart, equally acting out. Trying to push the cart with the hand/arm he was holding the baby with (and trying to bounce her to cheer her up) in his other hand was his phone. His wife was yelling so loud at him about how he screwed something up that we could all hear it.
I started my blog with this guy in mind.
I approached and said the only thing I could think of, being totally overwhelmed with my own feelings of agitation, disgust, compassion and empathy. “You are doing OK, dad.” He looked like a PTSD sufferer. I don’t even think he registered my comment.
The Kendrick brothers would have us believe that he probably deserved that.
I feel differently.
The Kendrick/Rainey/Driscoll model would resemble R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket. Yet as a father himself Scott knows there is a time and place for harsh correction, and a time and place where encouragement is needed. As Colossians 3:21 commands (NASB):
Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart.
It is ironic that the men who are most eager to tell the rest of us how to be Christian fathers have no concept of that whatsoever.
You can visit Scott’s blog here.
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Thanks for the link back, and the post.
A welcome difference I have seen between the manosphere/red pill world vs. the mainline Christian family/Dobson/Rainey/Kendrick world is the encouraging side. Life is a challenge, but the manosphere has the feeling of “you can do this.”
Odd, as much as men are described as failures in the Christian Family world, there is rarely the sense of “you can do this.”
Challenges for improvement are good. But there truly is an emptiness, which I can’t even precisely find, to the challenges from the Christian Family world. They challenge, yes, but something is missing. And no, I don’t even mean accountability for the wife (although that’s missing too).
Even R. Lee Ermey had a reason behind what he was doing in that movie…war is hell and if you can’t take the stress of being torn down and built up in boot camp…you’d never survive the stress of war.
However marriage & fatherhood is not meant to be war, your wife shouldn’t be your ‘drill instructor’, and other guys shouldn’t be tearing him down to build themselves up.
Dalrock
The Kendrick/Rainey/Driscoll model would resemble R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket.
Earl
Even R. Lee Ermey had a reason behind what he was doing in that movie…war is hell and if you can’t take the stress of being torn down and built up in boot camp…you’d never survive the stress of war.
Let’s dig deeper. Drill Instructors have the authority to do many things in training recruits, and the responsibility for the health and well being of those recruits. The yelling, etc. is for a purpose beyond self-aggrandizement.
On the other hand, the Kendrick / Rainey / Driscoll types claim authority over other men that they do not have, take zero responsibility for any results of their actions, but do insist on everyone deferring to them. Who else acts in this way? What other group of people demands much authority but shuns any responsibility while loudly insisting on being catered to?
I have been on the receiving end of unsolicited advice on fathering from childless, secular men. On one occasion I lost my patience with one who just wouldn’t take a hint to change the subject and I flat out told him that he didn’t know what he was talking about and that he should shut up. Was he ever offended!
Hoo boy, that’s a tough one 😉
I can think of several groups that could be.
It’s a well-observed truth that women, particularly wives, are quick to point out to their husbands (and their employees, if they are bosses) how men screw things up, and that without her, the Female Hercules, things would all go to pot.
Two things that men should do:
-Call her out on it (In Scott’s example above, she isn’t in the picture, just on the phone)
-Tell her he’s out of it and she can do it herself.
Since Proverbs 27:17 tells us that ”As iron sharpens iron, so one MAN sharpens the countenance of his friend” (modern satanic feminist mistranslations notwithstanding), men should encourage other men and call this bullshit out.
Challenges for improvement are good. But there truly is an emptiness, which I can’t even precisely find, to the challenges from the Christian Family world. They challenge, yes, but something is missing.
EMPATHY is what is missing from the churchian shamebund. Within the ‘sphere we know how to put ourselves in the other guy’s shoes. Hell, most of us have walked across the Continent in his shoes and we know exactly what he is feeling, often to the point of literally being able to feel his pain.
The churchian mangina shamebund, OTOH, can do no such thing because its members long ago abandoned their sense of manhood to the secular collective. They’re beyond castrated and converged, which also should be an automatic signal to ignore anything they have to say about manhoodin general and fatherhood in particular.
However marriage & fatherhood is not meant to be war
Modern Western women didn’t get that memo.
I have seen “exasperate” now be understood to mean “make them unhappy”. You can guess who’s pushing for that change.
And the latter is a lie. Discipline will often lead to unhappiness, and the Bible doesn’t command fathers to raise happy children.
Exasperation is definitely poison toward shaping a child to love their Heavenly Father, but that word has a real meaning, and isn’t a trump card for anything mother or child is unhappy about.
One working definition of “exasperate”: To be placed in a no-win situation with no way out.
Hmmmmmm….
Scott’s story reminded me of the well-worn “when momma ain’t happy, papa ain’t happy”. I despise it not because the maxim isn’t true – it is because it is distorted to become the exact opposite of what it is saying: that an unhappy woman makes everyone around her unhappy as well. Instead, our culture (and Christians in particular) ensure that no “step up” opportunity can every be overlooked: “man, it is your job (and her birthright) to ensure your woman is happy.”
In reality, it is simply stating the same basic truth as Proverbs 21:9 and 21:19 which are identically phrased (and the redundancy for emphasis should not escape us – this redundancy does not often occur in scripture):
It is better to live in a corner of a roof Than in a house shared with a contentious woman.
Translation: when a woman is not happy, she will make it her business to make everyone around her unhappy as well. Better find a roof corner if you want any peace – or perhaps a place in the desert (Prov 25:24).
Notice also that the verses don’t limit this to the husband. It is phrased generally to include anyone within her reach.
We must be in a parallel universe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEjvBntJHCw
Second try
“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”
Ephesians 6:4 ESV
The conjunction “but” shows a contrast or change of logic. Instead of provocation or exasperation (depending on translation) the correct course is discipline and instruction in the Lord. Ergo the lack of discipline and the failure of Christian instruction is the source of provocation and a cause of angry children. Chatechisms provide a scope and sequence for fathers to teach, train and discipline the mind and heart of their child. Government schools are a good way to undo it.
The accountability for this discipline and training is laid at the feet of the father. (Yet another area where inequalities are present between the sexes). The father is not necessarily the agent of discipline and training; he may wisely delegate, but he is the head who will answer to God. Yet another reason that the apostle gives the imperative “…the wife must see to it that she reverences (literally fears) her husband.” (Ephesians 5:33). Her example is the primary example for the children. If she honors and submits to father of her children, the children will learn honor and submission by her example. It is a difficult endeavor to raise upright children when their mother’s example is defiant and contemptuous. How can a child honor their mother who refuses to honor her head? How can they be trained and disciplined when their own mother resists the same?
“O My people! Their oppressors are children, And women rule over them. O My people! Those who guide you lead you astray And confuse the direction of your paths.”
Men have to quit being submissive and take back control. Women and children only act that way because you let them. If they are not a blessing and a joy in your life then make changes.
@Jonadab-the-Rechabite
Just to clarify, you are not just selecting a different translation, but are presenting a different verse (Ephesians 6:4 vs Colossians 3:21). It is however obviously related.
Fox brought back “Last Man Standing”.
Now they need to bring back “Father Knows Best”
Can you even begin to imagine a show with that name on modern TV?
IMAGINE the triggering.
Fox brought back “Last Man Standing”.
After all the dust up last year, I finally sat down and watched a couple of episodes.
Its essentially the very thing Dalrock has written about in the past. “Conservatives” like Tim Allen want to thread a very tiny needle and rewind to a place in husband/wife relations that lasted about 4 seconds in 1988.
The wife in Last Man Standing is still the more sophisticated of the couple. The daughter is more insightful. But he husband gets to make a cool or funny remark at their expense once in a while.
“Last Man Standing”
Saw an episode of this show just last night, or part of it. Tim Allen literally did a modified version of gun-cleaning dad on his new prospective son-in-law.
It’s not perfect by any means. A daughter in the military? Come on. And the other one got knocked up by a soyboy. And a career wife?
That’s why I added to bring back “Father Knows Best”.
Off topic, but sort of helps explain why husbands are willing endure stuff like this
https://americandadweb.wordpress.com/2018/11/02/its-usually-a-surprise-to-the-man/
Not exactly OT, CappyCap’s latest podcast:
It still never fails to amaze me how non-believers can so successfully and consistently express hard, obvious truths that Christians are either clueless or willfully ignorant of (and no, I most certainly DO NOT second his solution for Christian men desperate for a wife).
“Last Man Standing”
Saw an episode of this show just last night, or part of it. Tim Allen literally did a modified version of gun-cleaning dad on his new prospective son-in-law.
Watched the exact same thing last night. I like Allen a lot, and appreciate mightily that he’s one of only a handful of open conservatives that can find work in Hollywood, but he has a tradcon streak, no doubt about it. I watched another one a few days ago where his concluding “podcast” was all about deadbeat dads and manning up. I cringed.
I remember watching that show…didn’t he have a daughter that was a single mother, another daughter who was very narcissistic, and a third daughter who was more into doing guy things?
Sounds like a typical tradcon dad to me.
Like I said. Its an attempt to ratchet back a tool that just doesnt go backwards without a lot of grinding. And back to a place that probably never really existed anyway.
Last man standing is more parody than a social blueprint. It is a look at how the contemporary male has been decapitated in his home and relegated to the fringes of life. Contrast it with Home Improvement where the father was the bread winner and raising sons to be men, all with a mostly non-submissive wife; last man standing is the last vestiges of testosterone in a sea of estrogen within a world that thinks masculine virtue no longer has a place. It is not meant to be a model home or to present proper masculine response, but the reflection of the disfunction of what is now a minority home, two-parent household. Don’t look to Tim Allen for answers or to lead a movement, look to him for laughs in the face of social upheaval.