Volume 29, No.12                                 
March 21, 2004

Family Footsteps  

  Our kids will have a lot to live up to, or a lot to live down.  History is full of examples that offer potent insight for parents.

   India’s peace activist Mahatma Ghandi didn’t tell the whole story when he said, “Men may be good, but not necessarily their children.”  A terrible father who all but abandoned his son Harilal when the lad was in his teens, Ghandi was deeply embarrassed when the young man later converted from Hinduism to Islam.  But by then, Harilal was a widower struggling to raise four kids. He became a womanizer and an alcoholic.  The troubled son was drunk at Ghandi’s funeral and died of tuberculosis six months after his father was assassinated.
 
  Neglect was also a problem faced by Claude Fields, son of comedian W.C. Fields.  As a child, the boy hardly ever saw his famous father who refused to spend a cent on his son’s education.  Even when the comedian died with an estate of $800,000, he left his wife and child only $10,000 each, stipulating the rest be used to establish the W.C. Fields College For Orphan White Boys and Girls  “Where No Religion of Any Sort Is To Be Preached.”  By that time, Claude was a successful lawyer who contested the will — and won.

   But sometimes children find it hard not to follow in the family footsteps, at least a little. Albert Francis Capone, son of gangster Al Capone, was honest for the most part.  He once quit a job as a used-car salesman when he caught the boss turning back odometers.  But in 1965 he was arrested for stealing two bottles of aspirin and some batteries.  He told the judge, “We all have a little larceny in us, I guess.”  A year later, he changed his name to Albert Francis.  

   For William O’Hair, there was no escaping the name or notoriety ofhis mother, atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair.  When she launched a lawsuit so William wouldn’t have to pray daily with his ninth grade classmates, the Supreme Court outlawed school prayer in 1963.  But in the 1970s, William found God while in an Alcoholics Anonymous support group.  When he became a Baptist minister, he was once barred from preaching in a school auditorium by a principal citing his own mother’s Supreme Court case.

   When it comes to the errors, ignorance or self-interest we display, our children will either suffer the consequences or surmount them. And religion will often play a key role.  Negligence and neglect are still negligence and neglect, even when perpetrated by parents caught up in the cause of Christ.  There’s no greater Christian responsibility than providing for your family’s material, emotional and spiritual needs. But too often, children scorn the church because it gets the time and attention that rightfully belong to them.  “Those who won’t care for their own relatives... have denied what we believe,” says the apostle Paul”.  “Such people are worse than unbelievers.”  (1 Tim. 5:8).  But the other extreme — trying to buy the affection of your kids — is just as damaging.  Giving them the time of their lives is no substitute for giving them the time of yours.

   Though we can never use it as an excuse, it’s at least comforting to know our kids sometimes learn as much from our bad examples as our good ones.  History doesn’t always repeat itself when children see the faults in their families.  When their eyes and hearts are open, God’s grace and guidance can work, even in spite of us.

   Ezekiel 18 says no parent and child ever receives credit or condemnation based on what the other has done. There is no inherited sin or sainthood, nor do they flow the other way.  Each of us is responsible for our own conduct.  Each of us turns from God.  Each of us needs “a new heart and a new spirit” (v. 31).  But the effects of our sins can reach deep into another generation, making it all the more important for parents and children to help and encourage each other in the faith.

   So pray for your kids.  Practise what you preach.  Share your faith with them, don’t shove it at them.  If you’re side-by-side, right behind Jesus, you won’t have to worry about who’s following in your footsteps.

By Rick Gamble, published in Cross Current, the weekly newsletter of the Followers of Christ congregation in Brantford, Ontario, Canada.  Reprint at will in not-for-profit publications.  To subscribe, contact sgamble@bfree.on.ca