So I finally made it official--I am giving up the paper route effective December 24th. There are some things I miss about it, but when it comes right down to it, it makes me, well, tired. Lately I have been too tired to do things with friends and family, too tired to serve families the way I would like at work, and too tired to write. My body has been having a harder and harder time even fighting off illness lately. I doubt I could go much beyond December 24th even if I desired to.
That said, we have heard whispers lately of people saying things like, "I don't feel sorry for him. It is his choice to not make his wife work." Please allow me to clarify: while, like everyone else, I do have my off days where I just feel miserable I do not intend to seek pity for this lot I have chosen. If anything I like to talk about it to model for my many younger or maybe a little older but not yet married friends. Allow me to explain.
Children. They say it takes a village to raise a child. There is certainly some truth to that. A child does need many good influences in his or her life and less favorable influences need to be limited as much as is appropriate. This is why, for example, as it stands right now my daughter would not be able to fly 1200 miles away from us to spend time with her mother-in-law. They are allowed to see each other of course, but not under that type of circumstance because she is not a healthy part of the village according to the way we wish to raise our children. However, as important as those influences may be, we believe the primary responsibility for raising a child falls to that child's parents. I know a lot of people would read that and nod their head in agreement, maybe even quietly utter an, "amen," but then these same people would move on to drop their children off at daycare for 10-12 hours leaving maybe 2-4 hours to feed, bathe, and spend time with their younger children each day while they are awake. Do they really believe then that the parents have the primary responsibility for the child? Who is providing the foundational beliefs that that child is going to have for the rest of his or her life? Not mom and dad. Sure there are parents who are single parents by no fault of their own, but those are the exception not the rule.
Assuming that parents are meant to have the primary responsibility for raising a child, the next step is to figure out the roles. I could talk about Paul's writing and endure all of the "scholarly" arguments against the integrity of God's word, but I do not wish to write a full length book today so I will focus on another passage instead.
Genesis 3:17-19 -- To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
Adam was commanded to provide the food from the earth. He was told to sweat. He was told to go out and work. While I am not opposed to giving women all of the rights and respect they are due there is one thing I have never been able to wrap my head around about feminist movements. God himself in giving the curse that shaped the world today thought "work" would be a fitting punishment for Adam. Work is a curse. So why DO women fight so hard to be able to compete with men for it? Sincerely, I don't understand.
As a totally unrelated side note, I find it amusing that Adam got rebuked for listening to his wife.
Genesis 3:16 -- To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
Women have been cursed with the pain of childbearing. I believe it is apparent that this manifests itself in many forms throughout a woman's life regardless of the actual number of children she does or does not have. First there is the menstrual cycle itself with all of its err...joys. That endures for several decades. Then, of course, there are the actual labor pains that first come to mind when you read that curse. Finally, as the woman grows old the curse enters another stage called menopause. I would propose that, given that broader description of how this curse applies it is not unreasonable to assume it can also include the emotional roller coaster that accompanies a large part of actually raising a child. Finally, God said the woman's desire would be for her husband. Some look at this sexually. I do not share that view. Look at the world around you and tell me if you think God cursed women to only feel lust for their own husbands. Not a chance. I believe the desire for the husband and the husband ruling over the wife indicate that the woman is depending on the husband to meet basic needs. She desires her husband's provision and subjects herself to him (to an extent that is clarified further mostly in the new testament) to ensure that he will continue to pass what he has produced on to her.
To finally bring this back around full circle to the reason I speak so openly about the difficulties of doing my paper route, my family had a time of need. We both believe that it is my responsibility to provide and my wife's responsibility is to use the provision to take care of the home and children. I fulfilled my duty. It can be done. We are in a world that tells you you cannot have a family without a dual income. I want to tell the young men and women out there that the world lies.
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