The definitions of family that are swirling around our eyes and ears in 2018 are all wrong. They’re not only bad theses rationally; they’ve already been proven losers and they’re doomed to repeat their sad performance for anybody simple enough to be suckered by them. We’re thinking about, talking about, and finally DOING family WRONG in 2018. It’s lamentable and angering and stupid. We have jacked with the basis of society, when the right (I mean fitting, correctly-operating) model still sits under our noses, confident, dignified… and overlooked.
Everybody ready for some busting of the chops of American culture in 2018? Great, me too. Seems crazy that defending the building block of human civilization has become contentious, but hey, here we are. So here goes: what is a family?
A family is a dad and a mom who’re married, the generations behind them (i.e. grandparents), and whatever children they raise together.
Sounds strange to modern ears doesn’t it? Sounds like I came from a different century, at the least. Compare the above (Limiting! Antiquated! Closed-minded!) definition with the following permutations that have been cooked up in the Culture Lab lately:
- Two people of the same gender raising children
- Three people all married to each other together
- A group of people of various ages who all decided their gender was wrong
- Dude built a robot and married it
This is where we live. Even more alarming, this is where your children are living. Or at least, these are the messages from the culture that surrounds them. We moderns have become so convinced of personal rights, and our power to define our reality, that we believe that ANYthing is whatever we call it. We believe that everything’s up for grabs, and we’re the grabbers. So we declare, by our will, what OUR family will be, pulling any ingredients together in whatever way we fancy. I’m reminded not only of the Biblical dis “in those days… everyone did what was right in their own eyes,” but of Robert Frost’s admonition that poetry without rhyme or rhythm is like playing tennis with no nets. Similarly, if anything-you-can-make means family, then family means nothing. It’s just a group (or me and a robot). I had a great pack of dudes I ran around with in college. Were we a family? Are my drinking buddies my family? Is my GoT online forum my family? Are my Insta followers my family?
If they are, we’re finally left here: (this is an excerpt from a lifestyle article curation website, meaning: they stand for whatever gets clicks)
There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to what is the best type of family structure. As long as a family is filled with love and support for one another, it tends to be successful and thrive. Families need to do what is best for each other and themselves, and that can be achieved in almost any unit.
Oy vey. This doesn’t lead anywhere that’s good.
Let’s put a pin in this problem and talk about something completely different for a second:
I have written songs before. I decide if they’re salsas or waltzes, if they’re dance music or ballads. I decide what words will be sung… by whoever sings them, for as long as that song exists. It’s Creators Rights, and the principal will apply for as long as my creations do.
You did not invent you, and I did not invent me. We were made (such an important concept!) and, as such, there is PURPOSE imbued in us. Likewise Family is not something we have arrived at by our wits, nor is it something the universe or chance has worked out for us (were that the case, we should all set up altars to Universe and Chance in our homes and start worshipping them post haste). Family was very particularly created by God, given to the very first humans ever… and our Father has left us plentiful instructions for proceeding with His invention and having it work properly. Ain’t we glad we gots Bibles!? Without them how would we know how to live?
Without the timeless reliability of God’s instructions we’re left with our feelings, our short-sightedness, and whatever culture happens to cough up, as referenced above. These all sound like terrible ideas. Don’t do any of them. Don’t ever put Kool-Aid or root beer into your automobile’s fuel tank (even if it “just feels right”… don’t), don’t stick knives into electrical sockets (that’s… not how they work), and don’t try to get a model for family anywhere other than the Scriptures. Creator God knows best, and His concept of family brings the following truths to light:
FAMILY establishes a foundation of security and confidence from which one can advance into the world and achieve all manner of wonderful things: relationships, innovations, discovery, physical achievement. None of these things, by the way, ever ever produce the centered confidence that FAMILY does. We are all created with a deep, vast craving for acceptance. This God-given need is met first and best in FAMILY.
FAMILY defines a band of people to which we’re bound for life. The Bible calls this kind of relationship a covenant. This means we have to put up with others’ foibles, and our foibles are put up with as well. We have to learn negotiation, consideration, accommodation, and other really good -ation words. We’re never, ever getting away from these people… so we have to learn how to make the best of it. (A helpful life skill! …If you run from all problems, your life is doomed.)
FAMILY is the place where we can learn respect, obedience, submission to authority, and honoring of other human beings.
FAMILY is a living memory bank of our own story. All your living relatives who know the story of your family, know you in an important, centering way. The family, collectively, creates an identity for all its members.
FAMILY is the God-given receptacle for wealth, and the stewardship thereof is a necessary skill that dramatically affects life outside the family.
FAMILY, finally, is the God-ordained place for us to receive (and someday, give) love without strings attached. It’s the place we learn mercy, grace, and permanent acceptance.
In short, family is a gift from God. And the data backs it up: In a joint report in late 2015 from Princeton University and the Brookings Institute, David Ribar, from the University of Melbourne, writes:
“Reams of social science and medical research convincingly show that children who are raised by their married, biological parents enjoy better physical, cognitive and emotional outcomes, on average, than children raised in other circumstances. …[R]esearchers have been able to make a strong case that marriage has causal impacts on outcomes such as children’s schooling, their social and emotional adjustment, and their employment, marriage and mental health as adults.”
For gobs more of the same, go here. The fact is that yes, there IS “a right or wrong answer when it comes to the best type of family structure”! Truth bears out. This prescribed family model, the one that works Real Good, is God’s own. Here’s our definition again, just to refresh your memory. Then let’s look more closely at that definition:
A family is a dad and a mom who’re married, the generations behind them (i.e. grandparents), and whatever children they raise together.
- A father is given the leading role in a family. It’s not the “most important” role in a family, it’s just the lead. And God doesn’t love the occupier of that role any more than He loves any other member of the family. It’s just the man’s job. Also included in this job description: sacrificing yourself. All the time. For everybody else, especially mom. (This is not an easy job.)
For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior… Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” Ephesians 5:23-31
- A mother is given the support/help role in a family. She is the multi-tool in the kit, plugging every hole that dad’s weaknesses leave (usually: emotional support, among other things) and informing, then supporting the family vision led by dad. (This is not an easy job.)
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Ephesians 5:21-24
- That marriage part is paramount. As mentioned above, “covenant” is the foundation of a family bond, and if mom and dad break their commitment to each other, the family is shipwrecked and all is lost. (I don’t say the individual lives of those who’ve suffered divorce are hopeless or without purpose… I say that particular family is destroyed and the remaining individuals have to pick up the pieces and forage for an approximation of family thereafter.) Marriage is, by God’s design, a one-shot dive, for life. Without this marriage, there can be no family, for there is no context of absolute commitment (which is so very much more important than the romantic notion of love, which we trumpet as being paramount. It’s not. In fact, it’s guaranteed to dry up. When it’s gone you’ve either got an unbreakable bond, or you’ve got big trouble).
Another thing you do: You flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer looks with favor on your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, “Why?” It is because the Lord is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit. And what does the one God seek? Godly offspring. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth. “The man who hates and divorces his wife,” says the Lord, the God of Israel, “does violence to the one he should protect,” says the Lord Almighty. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful. Malachi 2:13-16
- Grandparents refer to a Biblical idea that no family just has two generations in it. Our family extends to the whole line. Ever seen a family tree? THAT’s your family. Grandparents are a necessary (and honored) part of the story, embodying wisdom, endurance, and blessing.
“They are the sons God has given me here,” Joseph said to his father. Then Israel said, “Bring them to me so I may bless them.” Genesis 48:9
- With the confidence of a marriage bond, you have a shelter in which children (natural born or adopted) can be trained and flourish. The raising of children, by the way, is a family affair. You could say that, in the context of a family’s purpose/vision, it’s THE family affair (the Bible doesn’t speak to the possibility of childless couples, except that they were always miraculously provided with children). Children represent the collective learnings and convictions of grandparents and mom and dad, their unique version of what a life could be like if it were given everything mom and dad would want to give a child. This vision of what the child can be is (as you’d expect) led by dad and supported by mom. It’s the family’s way of speaking God’s words into the future, of implanting the Kingdom convictions and revelations they’ve received into society and even into future generations. “Mom raises the kids” is not a godly statement.
Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4
- The child is the inheritor of wisdom, the receiver of guidance, the embodier of vision, and the obeyer of parents. The child is imbued with identity from the parents, finds its place in the family dynamic and, as he or she understands how his or her individual personality and gifts contributes to the family vision, will carry on that vision, refining the family dynamic with his or her own spouse someday. (This is not an easy job.)
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” Ephesians 6:1-3
Now, the above 6 points make A LOT OF US feel like we’re on the outs. Like, way waaaaaaay out. Since many, many of us haven’t found the satisfaction that family was designed to give us, we assume that the idea of family is broken and we need to redefine it. That is understandable. But no, the design has no flaws; it’s our execution that’s so often missed the mark.
Don’t give up. And don’t throw in the towel if your family of origin is jacked up. My father didn’t.
My father is from a broken family. In all sorts of ways. Divorce was rampant. Alcoholism stained the family tree. His parents, God bless em, didn’t really know how to be parents. His divorced mom had my father working at the same bar where she worked, rolling out empty kegs and sweeping up puke deep into the night, when my father was just 7 years old. Poverty was de rigueur; my dad picked cotton when he was a 10-year-old on into his teens. So what did he do? Did he say, “I’ve had a bad hand. ‘Bible Family’ isn’t going to happen for me”? Nope. He was born again as a 17-year-old and started following Jesus. In time, he saw the Biblical picture of family (and saw examples in his church), and became the patriarch of a God-centered FAMILY. My sister and I both follow Jesus and train our kids to do the same. Addiction, divorce, and poverty ended with my father. He changed the story of our generations. I’m on his downline and I’ll be grateful through eternity. So if your family’s story royally bites like his did, do what he did. Change your story. EVEN IF YOU ARE THE SOURCE of the chaos, repent of old brokenness and start following the God model. Reinvent. Be a heroic, Abrahamic, family-building stud like my dad.
The peace, love, acceptance, and confidence we’re meant to find in FAMILY, even if it wasn’t there for you, can be there for the generations that follow you. They can! Be Abrahamic and move to a place you might have only read about and never experienced. Get to know where you’re headed in the scriptures and in other men and good books (and, you know, websites!). Know how your Designer Father intended family, and follow that plan to your everlasting bliss. And the kicker is, when men like you band together with each other, we start finding ourselves naturally forming neighborhoods, and businesses, and entire city cultures that are deep, healed, whole, and strong. If you want to change the world, lead your family. And don’t lead it the way YOU think it ought to be; lead it according to God’s plan.
