Home Thoughts From Abroad

The greatest joy in my life was being a father and raising children. I know this is true for a lot of our readers who have shared the triumphs and the tragedies of being responsible for precious young lives in their care: an awesome responsibility and privilege. I think very few of us were emotionally and physiologically ready for the task when it happens. But I know that for me the experience was transformational. For a woman I suppose that moment begins when she discovers she is pregnant, and therefore has several months to prepare herself. A man may only look on in wonder and admiration as his wife adapts to this new reality inside her. His moment comes when he holds this tiny child for the first time. Ladies, give your man all the time he needs at this point. He is going through in seconds what you went through in months; it can be a little overwhelming.

Those child raising years can be a challenge as these tiny, totally fearless little creatures grow, and learn about the world around them. Caring for them and teaching them how to navigate their way through an often dangerous and disappointing world is not an enterprise for the faint-hearted, or the self-absorbed (which perhaps explains why so many twenty- and thirty-somethings don’t). But it is wonderfully rewarding and vastly entertaining. When they finally make it through those awkward teenage years and embark upon their own adult lives, there is an exhilarating sense of accomplishment and relief, mixed with joy, and a fair bit of regret.

Why were you in such a rush to get through? Now that you see the end, why didn’t you take more time at the beginning? Now you understand the importance of so many things, can you go back and have another try? Well, yes you can. You can be a grandparent! Which is what we have been doing at our son’s place just outside Seattle, Washington. Amid all the reading and telly, walks to the library and trips to school was a birthday party for their youngest, Eli, who just turned three. She is, like many young girls, enamoured of being a princess, and her gifts – largely a selection of books and dolls centred around Disney’s Frozen – reflected that very powerful social theme.

I have some issues around the essential narcissism of that theme, but I’ll leave that for another time. For the moment it was enough to see our young granddaughter – struggling with her tears at the pain of some new teeth coming in – feeling loved and cared for as her siblings and friends celebrated her birthday with presents and games and singing. Our daughter-in-law made another cake icing extravaganza in honour of the occasion, and to see Eli’s little cherub face light up in shy joy at its presentation was lovely to behold.

The most fun, however, was watching and listening to the girls singing along with the music from Frozen. The movie has some strong and catchy tunes, and even the guys enjoyed singing Olaf’s signature song “In Summer.” I personally like the poignant and wistful “Do You Want to Build a Snowman.” But there is nothing quite so delightful as listening to three- and four- and five-year-old girls belting out “Let it Go” at the top of their tiny lungs. There is something so charmingly incongruous about a three-year-old swinging her arms about defiantly and singing the line “I can’t hold it back anymore!” Just what have you been restraining for those three long years, sweetie?

They say that grandchildren are the reward for not having given your teenaged children what they so richly deserved at the time. That is of course overstatement for effect. Raising teenagers can be as rewarding as raising children. I think that grandchildren are an opportunity to remember what it was like to raise children yourself; to revisit that joy and reward, and to treasure childhood all over again. There is nothing in my experience so filled with the tenderest love. Those who miss out on this experience miss the sweetest part of life.

Andy Crouch, editor of Christianity Today, and author of Culture Making makes the point in his book that changing culture can only happen at the community level. May I respectfully disagree? I know I don’t have the qualifications of Dr Crouch, nor the background in cultural studies, but I would like to contribute my own thoughts on this subject.

I have read through this book and I do agree with the author that Jesus was a cultural confronter and a culture changer on a national level. But what I see in the gospels is the amount of time that Christ put in to changing individual people. Every confrontation was a confrontation with an individual. It might have been a person in cultural authority, but it was a person. His disciples were people, chosen by Him, and these are the people that He changed. It was through these people that cultural change came about, first in Jerusalem, then throughout the Roman Empire.

Let me bring this down to a personal example. I watched my wife as she interacted with our young children, and again now as she interacts with our grandchildren. I think she is a culture changer. I don’t think she would come to the attention of Dr Crouch, or anyone outside her own family but she has my attention. I watched how she would take a cranky, unmanageable child, and turn him incrementally into a loving and capable little boy. There is nothing she wouldn’t do to bring this about.

It was my wife who taught our children a sense of adventure; that learning to splash in the water was fun and not something to be afraid of. And when they cried when they got wet, she would cheer and encourage them so that they learned to deal with the small bit of adversity they faced until the next challenge. Then she would scold and nudge and cheer and encourage them through that as well. She was patient and comforting when they were upset, but she would never smother them, teaching them that they could face a bit of distress and learn how to manage it. When they were injured she would tend to them competently, but she would never make big deal of it and taught them to face pain with humour and courage, as she herself did.

She taught them how to read and how to take enjoyment in learning. It was never a chore, but always a joyous adventure that she enabled, cuddling them in her lap and delighting in their discovery. She always let them take the lead in learning, suggesting and directing their attention, never forcing anything upon them that wasn’t their natural inclination. She empowered and supported them as they grew, giving them safe boundaries. She taught them how to deal with being unhappy, and refused to allow them to develop sour or demanding dispositions, keeping them thinking and acting in positive directions.

In my humble opinion we do not give women enough credit for the cultural change agents that they are. In some countries women are denied education and work opportunities and saddled with large families which they must raise almost single-handed. The result is a culture of ignorance and repression; male-dominated cultures marked by oppression and violence. In cultures where women are free to obtain an education and are themselves empowered, they empower children that bring about educated and empowered societies.

Perhaps I misunderstand the point that Dr Crouch is making about cultural change, and he is certainly well qualified to write on the subject. But then again, perhaps he is missing what is so obvious in front of him as well. Through whom did God announce the birth of His Son? And to whom did Christ reveal Himself after His resurrection? In both cases was it not women? In a male dominated culture, was not God saying something fundamentally important about the role of women in changing culture? Are we missing the obvious?

Well, they are gone. It seems they only just arrived and they are gone already. ‘They’ being of course our daughter Liz, son-in-law Greg and wee babe Russell, who at five months has already begun to be a world traveler, having been to Paris, Malaysia and Amsterdam.

Christmas is always a difficult time for us. All the expats go home so there are precious few people to socialize with and all the people you really want to be with are impossibly far away opening presents, going out to movies and eating dinners with family and friends. Lord help my envious spirit!

So when our youngest ‘child,’ now a grown woman with a husband and child of her own, decided to make the long (24 hours, door to door) trek to Malaysia to visit us, we were more than just grateful; we were ecstatic!

We were fortunate in that close friends Jim and Karen were willing to allow us the use of their apartment while they were in Canada, so Greg and Liz had plenty of room to relax and a place they could call their own while they were here. Pam had rented and bought a few things to make life a little easier for Russell, such as a baby walker – now unfortunately banned back home, much to every child’s loss of mobility and joy of exploration – and a pool float which got a lot of use. Liz and Greg brought their own stroller/car seat which was invaluable.

Suitably equipped we went everywhere that we were collectively inclined to go. We drove out to Genting and took the longest cable car in Asia across the ancient tropical rainforest and tended Russell while Liz and Greg climbed up to see the Batu Caves at Thaipusan. We saw our local supermall/theme park, Sunway Pyramid, strolled through the lovely KLCC park, designed by famed Brazilian landscape artist Roberto Marx, and ‘window shopped’ in Pasar Seni and Jalan Petaling. But mostly we hung out at our own elevated pool where we got a nice breeze to cool us down while watching Russell work out the logistics of forward motion.

While Liz and Greg checked out the sights in Singapore and the sands of Langkawi, Pam and I – well c’mon, mostly Pam! – entertained our grandson with more local walks and occasional splashes in the pool. It was great to get to see Pam with a baby in her arms again. She was a wondrous mother when our kids were little and I remember being very much in awe of her understanding and care for our kids. It was nice to be reminded of that again after so many years!

After a final meal at the Oasis where Greg and I got in a couple of games of pool and Pam and I got to dance, it was time for Liz and Greg to go back to Calgary and more familiar surroundings and weather, and for us to get back to our regularly scheduled lives. We made a final run to the airport to see them off and drove back home in complete silence just thinking through all the joys of the last two weeks. It was a glorious visit and very much appreciated.

Thirty years ago today we had the joy of welcoming our beautiful baby girl who has brought us more happiness and excitement than we could ever have imagined. Thanks to the earlier arrival of her two older brothers we had already made a pretty good adjustment to parenthood so we were able to be a lot more relaxed with our third and just enjoy our daughter’s discovery of the world.

We found that she had a very unique perspective on things. She would make comments – we got to calling them Lizzyisms – that on the surface didn’t appear to be related to what she was seeing. But after suspending our own accumstomed view, found that her insights were always most pertinent and revealed things that we hadn’t noticed. As she grew she became more and more sure of her own view of the world, and forced us, reluctantly at first but with growing appreciation, to see the world as she experienced it.

We found, as she matured, that she is not only beautiful on the outside, but exceptionally beautiful and strong on the inside. She is kind, gentle, sweet, caring, persistent, wise and smart and always up for a challenge. It has been a priceless gift to watch her grow, take on the challenges of life through university and some tough years at work. She is never one to shirk a responsibility or give up on a challenge. Our hearts were bursting when we saw her walk down the aisle and join her life with such a wonderful young man, but nothing will compare to the thrill of seeing her holding her own little baby boy this last summer and see her blossom almost overnight into a wonderful mom.

We feel blessed and honoured, not because we are her Mother and Father, but because she is our Daughter! We are so, so proud of her and wish her all the best on her thirtieth birthday!

We hope you have a wonderful day and look forward to sharing this amazing year ahead with you and Liz.

You are an awesome addition to our family and we know you are going to make a great Dad for our new little grandson.

Can’t wait to meet this little guy.