Today, Judah was hanging out in my office sitting on a 4 foot ladder chatting with me and watching me work. I am very busy with work right now. So busy that part of me wanted to sternly tell him to get out, but another part of me, a deeper and unheard part of me, yearned to be with my son - even at work. Maybe especially at work.
Since the industrial revolution men have left the home - sometimes even left their hometown - to "work." The word "work" used to have a more holistic connotation; something you do to cultivate your land, your family, your life. Sure, doing so also required doing chores that aren't fun and doing things to survive whether you liked it or not. But it also meant using your hands, taking care of a farm perhaps, and investing in the home front. Your sons were not annoyances, they were not neutral to your success. They were your assets and without them you would fail as you aged. Fail, or, perhaps even die.
Now men "go" to a "workplace" where they often sit on their butts and work on a project with which they have no real connection, to which they feel no true loyalty, and for which they have not much excitement. Work is dead. It is painful.
I am fortunate to work from home. While Judah is too young to do anything useful for me in my office, today it dawned on me that it is my choice (indeed, I don't HAVE to conform to the dead definition of work) whether or not Judah can stay in my office with me. And while there will be times when I am too busy for him to be here, and times when I'm just too distracted by a 3 year old in my workplace, I have made the decision from here on out to at least let him be as much a part of my worklife as humanly possible.
Words like apprentice, family business, legacy, etc. come to mind. Will Judah be rejected from my work life or will he be a part of it? What about you and your kids?
This is perhaps only one example of a way in which the human drive for efficiency, productivity, and achievement have robbed us of more valuable and satisfying pursuits. The scary thing to me is that most of the pursuits we've abandoned in favor of a higher domestic GDP are probably so far gone that we don't even know what they are; we don't even know what we are missing.
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3 comments:
Well at risk of austricizing all the GDP chasers the question is a fair one...what was the role of parent/kid relationships and what should it be. This reminds me a recent email asking about God's standards for Christians...it really is a change of currency. Love the Lord with all you got, and love your neighbor. So whatever it looks like to love Judah, that is what you ought to do. Incorporating someone in your life is an ultimate sign of love, in whatever part of life we can incorporate each other...we should. Because whatever we're doing probably matters less than loving, as God enables us to love...with his love.
Owen may be the only kid who has watched his mama sew an eyeball back into place, or helped a schnauzer pass a bladder stone the size of an almond. I am glad he gets to see these interesting things and as long as it doesn't give him nightmares or interfere with my ability to do the best job for the patient and client I like to include him, sometimes it is better for the client and patient that I not be distracted by a small child.
an amazing dad wrote this.
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