By Cindy Koch –
Have you considered the children of our world today? They are twelve years old and pregnant. Suicide watch seems to be a cool new trend among college students. Boys with guns can’t distinguish between a video game killing spree and elementary schools. There’s one question that rolls around in my mind: What is wrong with kids today?
I will answer this plain and simple. They have unfocused and uncaring fathers. Now, I don’t necessarily mean their biological fathers or even their physically present fathers. I am talking about the ones who teach, guide, and follow these children from birth to adulthood. That guy.
This father would tear a baby from her mother immediately after birth. He would pierce and pinch her in a removed room so the cries would be muffled from mom’s protective ears. He would coax the loving parent to hand her over, the sooner the better, to be locked away in an institution. Really, any institution, as long as it was far removed from the oversight of those who had been gifted with this tiny life.
This father enforces his own laws, and they change like the fickle evening breeze. One minute, he protects the defenseless. The next, he abandons them in the middle of distress. He professes to help the children in need but only passes their problems to another. He convinces all that his work is for the sake of the kids but lines his own pocket with the generosity of others.
Who is this evil imposter? It’s our country, state, and schools. These places were never intended to serve as our fathers. At one time, maybe they were helpful organizations to assist a society to live together. Today, I fear, children are being raised to look up to the wrong daddy.
Some may say that our government is a reflection of the family structure at home. At a time, this may have been true, but today we have skipped the most important realm of the father relationship: fathers at home. How can we have a loving and caring society when there is no man that comes home at night? How can laws fix our problems when we have never been forgiven from the lips of a flesh and blood man? Our society lives under the shadow of an unknown father who looks nothing like the father of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
It is true that everyone needs a father. Everyone will search for one. It is built into our basic needs as a little lost child. We need someone to love and protect us, someone to teach us right and wrong. Your job as a parent to your children is to be that father, no matter how imperfect it looks.
My husband and I made the decision long before having kids to homeschool our children. In the beginning of our journey, we did it for educational quality. We wanted our children to have a consistent education that lead up to reading the great books of the Western world. We hoped they would experience the wisdom of great thinkers and beauty of God’s creation during these formative years.
But even more than this, we have learned through the years that teaching our children at home has forced us to be the ever-present parents. If nothing else good comes from their education, our children know their father. They share a table with a man who loves them. They confess their faults and sins to someone who assures them mercy. They literally wrestle with a strong arm who is gentle and kind. Even in his faults, they know their daddy loves them.
