Be alert soon to be fathers..

[Dave-W]

I hope you wouldn't advise your sons and grandsons to put teaching Sunday School or participating in the choir over spending time with their children if their time away from work is limited.

I would advise them to try and find a profession that did not require all those hours a week.

 

[Dave-W]

if you're able to meet your financial obligations and needs by working, say, a forty-hour week, that it's somehow a morally good thing to seek to spend sixty hours in paid employment.

I could NOT meed the finances of our family without all that overtime.

 

[Paidiske]

And I'm not saying you could have. But wouldn't it have been good if your workplace conditions had been such that you could have?

 

[blackribbon]

Really? You want to go there?

I found nothing "gratifying" about it at all beyond my wife being able to stay at home full time with our children which was HER desire from the start.

My "gratification" was falling asleep behind the wheel and getting T-boned and almost dying.

Happy Birthday Twins!
Dad is in the hospital on life support for your 3rd birthday.

Praise God for intercessors that prayed me thru that. I should not have survived at all.

But even thru that, I would do that all again if my wife wanted.

I said nothing about the hours you put in to support your family financially. I was only remarking about the volunteer hours that did not serve your family. Maybe you should have used those hours to sleep for a few years. Your volunteer hours did not help your wife stay home with the kids.

 

[Dave-W]

But wouldn't it have been good if your workplace conditions had been such that you could have?

Ah. Workplace conditions of the Tool and Die industry in Lower Michigan and Northern Indiana.

One place I worked at had this attendance policy:

If you signed in late by even one minute it was a half point (morning or lunch)
If you signed in more than 15 minutes late it was a full point (morning or lunch)
If you signed out early for lunch or at the end of the day it was a full point.

Points expired in 6 months.

If you collected more than a certain number of points, it was an automatic 3 day suspension to be taken at your supervisor's convenience. Could be next week, could be 3 years from now. If you got so much as a half point before that suspension is discharged you are automatically terminated.

One guy who was a die repairman (a rare commodity) ran afoul of that. It had been a rough winter and his wife was pregnant so he got stuck in snow a few times and had to take time off to take his wife to the doctor. He got the 3 day suspension. 6 months later he was called on a Saturday morning (he was NOT scheduled to work that weekend) to come in and fix a die from a crash so they could get it back in production. He came in, fixed the die and left. But since he was called in AFTER the start of the shift that day, he got another point. When he come to punch in Monday am, he was told that he had been fired and to take up his tools and leave.

While Modineer had more stringent rules than some other places, it was not that far out of the norm for that industry in that part of the country.

 

[Dave-W]

I was only remarking about the volunteer hours that did not serve your family. Maybe you should have used those hours to sleep for a few years.

LOL!!! You do not understand the controlling culture of the congregations I was in either.

The Discipleship movement has been called a "cult" by some. I will not call it that. But there was a big expectation of many hours of volunteer service to remain in "good standing with what God is doing in the earth today." Even after I moved away from that city and congregation, the mentality remained. I believed God expected it from me.

 

[blackribbon]

LOL!!! You do not understand the controlling culture of the congregations I was in either.

The Discipleship movement has been called a "cult" by some. I will not call it that. But there was a big expectation of many hours of volunteer service to remain in "good standing with what God is doing in the earth today." Even after I moved away from that city and congregation, the mentality remained. I believed God expected it from me.

My point is simply that the time would have been better spent serving your family (which includes you got more sleep so you could be mentally present at both your job and at home), than serving the church during this time period, regardless of the expectation or the people you listened to back then. Singing in the choir or teaching a small group is not a godly activity if it takes away from your family and their needs. There is a time and season for everything. When you have young children, they need quantity time from both parents to raise them to be confident godly men and women.

 

[Dave-W]

Singing in the choir

Actually it was not just "singing in the choir."
It was directing the choir, writing much of our worship music, arranging the rest and leading worship for 3 services a week.

If you want to hear the songs I wrote, go HERE.

teaching a small group

It was writing the curriculum for and teaching the New Members class and filling in on the main sermon when the pastor was not there. That lasted a few months when he was out with malaria.

 

[Dave-W]

y point is simply that the time would have been better spent serving your family (which includes you got more sleep so you could be mentally present at both your job and at home), than serving the church during this time period, regardless of the expectation or the people you listened to back then.

Yeah - perhaps you are right. Hind sight is always 20/20.

 

[blackribbon]

Yeah - perhaps you are right. Hind sight is always 20/20.

And I will agree that there were different expectation by society back then and it sounds like you did the best you could trying to meet everyone's expectations with all the right intentions behind your actions. I am simply saying, do not teach our current generation to believe that because you did it that way, it is the best and godliest way. We need to own our short comings and try to advise the young people to avoid them.

 

[Dave-W]

I am simply saying, do not teach our current generation to believe that because you did it that way, it is the best and godliest way.

I think my kids and their spouses all have a pretty good handle on that one.

Our middle daughter (mother to the 2 oldest grandkids) actually had a sit-down discussion with her mom and I about that, and why I was gone so much. It was quite productive.

 

[blackribbon]

I think my kids and their spouses all have a pretty good handle on that one.

Our middle daughter (mother to the 2 oldest grandkids) actually had a sit-down discussion with her mom and I about that, and why I was gone so much. It was quite productive.

Good for your family. But don't post here that men should be working extra hours, overtime, and serving long volunteer hours at their church for the newly pregnant young people posting here. It is one thing if they are working those hours to pay the light bill & mortgage. It is another thing, if those long hours are to buy a new boat or other unnecessary items....or even worse, to avoid parenting their own children.

 

[Dave-W]

It is another thing, if those long hours are to buy a new boat or other unnecessary items....or even worse, to avoid parenting their own children.

I agree totally.

That is being entirely selfish.
As I read the scriptures there is nothing good to say about being selfish in any way.

ETA: besides - who has time for a boat ???? When you are working those kind of hours it would sit at the dock year after year and never get taken out. I gave all that stuff up before I got married.
No more boating, no more fishing. (and as a single I lived for that)

My 2nd granddaughter asked to go fishing with grandpa so we went for the first time last fall.
It was really strange after 3 decades to be fishing again ...

 

[blackribbon]

I agree totally.

That is being entirely selfish.
As I read the scriptures there is nothing good to say about being selfish in any way.

ETA: besides - who has time for a boat ???? When you are working those kind of hours it would sit at the dock year after year and never get taken out. I gave all that stuff up before I got married.
No more boating, no more fishing. (and as a single I lived for that)

My 2nd granddaughter asked to go fishing with grandpa so we went for the first time last fall.
It was really strange after 3 decades to be fishing again ...

There are plenty of men who work hard to save up for their toys (be it boats, video games, computers, etc...) and then use what little precious spare time they have to play with their toys instead of their children. Christian men often hide behind their service at church...because they get kudos and pats on the back for being "such godly men" while their wives are missing services because there is no one to help with the kids.

(This isn't about you....just answering your question).

 

[Larniavc]

allow Mom to stay at home with the children.

That's kind of what I mean.

Having mum stay at home with the kids can be part of the problem. Couple that with dad being gone a lot of the time and you have a recipe for post natal depression.

The isolation and never ending demands placed on one by young children is a crushing weight to bear.

I would argue that dividing the paid work equally between both parents so they get equal time with the kids is really important.

Personally I find my paid work much less stressful that looking after my one child: having to look after two or more as a full time job would drive my wife and I nuts.

Sharing the load means half the stress for mum: given the OP it seems an elegant solution.

 

[Larniavc]

That was another 25-30 hours a week.

That's just a question of prioritising.

My entire schedule was re written when my boy came along.

 

[Larniavc]

There was no "paid leave" back then. You got your 2 weeks "vacation" as a check for 10 days pay; and were discouraged from taking any time off for it.

Good grief, that sounds really tough on people.

Is it still like that in your country?

 

[Dave-W]

That's kind of what I mean.

Having mum stay at home with the kids can be part of the problem. Couple that with dad being gone a lot of the time and you have a recipe for post natal depression.

In our case My Wife WANTED to be a full time stay at home mom.

And she was really good with them.

 

[Dave-W]

Good grief, that sounds really tough on people.
Is it still like that in your country?

That was a regional norm. I moved from there about 20 years ago, and that industry does not exist in this part of the country. I have no idea if it is still that way or not.

 

[Larniavc]

Maybe part of what needs to happen is pushing for change in workplace culture, to allow dads to more easily be involved parents in these early months? I've heard of some employers, for example, allowing new dads to work one day less a week, or go home a couple of hours early each day, for some months after the birth... that sort of thing can make a huge difference!

My employer (the NHS in U.K.) lets both parents divide up the 40 or so weeks leave between them as they see fit.

There was no way I would not take that time to spend with the boy when he was tiny and it meant I could share the load with my wife.