Only God Knows
Jill
confronted her drunken father in the kitchen. She dared to challenge his
behavior. Result: a neck jarring slap in the face. With pent up fury Jill
delivered a similar action.
Her
father exploded.
Jill
deflected his first swing. More swiftly followed. His first direct hit landed
Jill on the floor. Her single opportunity to escape resulted in him grabbing
her hair and yanking her back. Sitting on her, he slapped her left and right
again and again until Alice struck his head with a cast iron frying pan. Police
were called again. Warnings were issued. Promises were made. Three weeks passed
before Jill’s bruises disappeared, and she could face her classmates.
How in the
world can a father treat his daughter so brutally? To such a question one
might well expect, “only God knows.”
Who else would know the events in the
father’s past that shaped his current behavior? Only God can judge Frank,
Jill’s father. However, when people hear a report of a father hitting his
child, they are quick to judge, quick to find him a despicable character. From
a single report or two or three is it fair to judge Frank as a terrible person?
Jill lived with her father for seventeen
years. She saw him as mean, so mean that she couldn’t live in the same house
with him anymore. Her hatred for him characterized him as evil. Is that fair?
While developing a strong dislike for Frank
is understandable, jumping to a conclusion that he is bad is not acceptable. Once
I learned about Jill’s past I understood her disturbing behaviors. I applied
that principle to Frank.
From the belief that each person is a
creation of God, a masterpiece that is a work in progress, I used shared
stories of interpersonal conflicts that I encountered during my teaching career
to work out Frank’s untold story, a
story not in my novel, Baggage burdens.
 |
In opening the closet door to Frank’s past I saw
his father’s skeleton, a poor man’s
bones, a man who worked very hard to support his family. For him life left
little room for blunders. That meant he couldn’t tolerate his son’s mistakes. So
that Frank wouldn’t experience the same hardships he demanded obedience. Frank’s
father’s insisted that Frank excel at school. The father’s constant
not-good-enough-yet nature created an inferiority complex in his son. As a
result Frank was determined not to be like his father.
What went wrong? Frank looked to his fellow
workers for a parenting model. What he saw he couldn’t live up to. He reverted
to the only other model he knew, his father’s––supply his children with their
basic needs; expect obedience and good marks at school. Their failure meant forceful
punishment.
Can Frank be forgiven for his parenting style?
Alice, his wife, answers that question.
haiku capsule:
father’s child rearing
inferior
strategy
unforgiveable?
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