3.02.2006

You made your bed - sleep in it

As I was driving around yesterday my radio was tuned in on one of those talk shows where people call in for some advice. A young man called up and told how he was in the process of getting a divorce because his wife had committed adultery. During the conversation it became evident that this couple had two young children so the host asked what arrangements had been made as far as the children were concerned.

He confidently said that they had set up a schedule whereby he would have the children for two days then she would have for them two days then they would go back to him for one day and alternate in this manner between the both of them. Immediately upon hearing this, the talk show host snapped back at him and asked him how he would feel if he was one of his children at being bounced around from one parent to the other. What kind of a life had he set up for them?

Needless to say the man didn’t like the answer/advice he got. He was told to do his best to stay in the marriage no matter how he felt and at least pretend for the children’s sake to give them some stability in having a mother and father, instead of the possibility of having two mothers and two fathers and all the confusions and hang-ups that this often leads to.

This is pretty harsh advice for a generation that throws away everything including human life for self gratification. Children are made to pay for many adult mistakes/blunders because not many want to hang in and work at doing what’s best for them. These children get dragged into new families, new siblings, new homes, new schools and are expected to cope and act like normal kids.

No one wants to face responsibility. What happened to, “You made your bed, now sleep in it?” Not only don’t they want to sleep in it, they want to throw it out and get a new one.

Years down the road when that child who is now an adolescent gets in trouble with the law, they should go and get the parent and put them in jail. Marriages from previous generations were not so hunky dory, but the husband and wife gutted out many problems and made it last. They provided stability even in a rocky situation.

People now a day would say that they were stupid. Were they? They were able to get through tougher times even when some of the marriages were prearranged and the byproduct of their cohesion was probably you and me.

Meditate on the following and see if you come up with the conclusion that it’s stupid:

Endeavor to be patient in supporting the defects and infirmities of others, or what kind so ever; because thou also hast many things which others must bear withal.

-Imitation of Christ, Thomas A Kempis

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