The 3rd and 4th Generation
This is the first in a 4 part series about creating new patterns in your family that will bless the 3rd & 4th generation.
“The Lord…who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.” Exodus 34:7
You stand at the center point of your grandparents and your grandchildren. Here at this fulcrum of life, it is up to you to discern what positive family attributes are important to carry forward into future generations and which qualities need to be thanked, blessed, forgiven, and faded into history.
Family culture contains those traits, conscious and subconscious, that last through the generations. Certainly, the second generation, your children, will take the good and the bad from their childhood and continue the thread into the future. But what will that legacy be? For the Marr family, like all families, it’s been a mixed bag. Here are some things to think about, discuss, and work through as you mature your family dynamic:
1) Stake in the Ground
2) Guard your Tongue and Tone
3) Can Do or Must Do
4) What’s Missing
We’ll develop these ideas over the next few weeks.
Stake in the ground: Dave’s Depression-era grandfather frequently punched his grandmother. He was an alcoholic, a short man with a short temper when he drank, which was often. Raising five boys on a farm during the Depression was backbreaking work. The external world with its Depression limitations would cause frustrations which caused Grampa Bill to turn to alcohol to numb the feelings. The distance between frustration and fist was small. The 5 boys loved their parents, their dad included, but didn’t want to be like them in the least. Their family culture resulted in every child leaving home as quickly as possible, thus escaping and leaving Dave’s grandma to her fate.
Dave’s Dad, Larry, was likely an alcoholic, but never hit his mother. That was his stake in the ground. No matter how mad and frustrated he got, he never even got close to physical violence. Escaping childhood to the Navy, then the Air Force, Larry sought a better life. However, external business circumstances created internal frustrations to be numbed in the same manner – drink. And, also like his father, the person closest received the brunt of his frustration. But it stopped short of physical abuse. Even when drunk, he held his self-control at that stake in the ground, and never, never, not once hit his wife.
Dave saw from his grandfather and father that 2 elements combined to cause this family trait of drinking and lashing out – difficult times and unreasonable expectations. Dave concluded that he couldn’t do anything about the first, everyone faces difficult times. It’s having unreasonable expectations that difficult times shouldn’t exist that was the culprit for being frustrated. One’s ego and self-esteem says, “Hey, I am a winner, but I’m not winning. In fact, I’m losing pretty good right now.” So instead of looking inward to manage the emotional turbulence, both his Dad and Granddad turned to drink. Dave, instead, turned to his wife, family, and God for comfort and restoration that allowed him space to evaluate how he was contributing to his own difficulties. His stake in the ground was to not get frustrated or mad in the first place, so “kicking the dog” was never an option.
The Marr children, adults now and starting families of their own, have yet to confront significant external difficulties. Nothing in their personalities would indicate dependence on alcohol, difficulty in managing frustrations, or inability to adjust expectations when disappointment arises. Hopefully, negative Marr family legacy traits won’t continue into the future.
One should look back on generations past and view with a loving eye the blessings and curses mixed in family heritage. Dave’s granddad hit his wife, an unforgivable sin. But he was a good man pressed impossibly down by circumstances. Long dead, should he be hated or forgiven as a flawed man? Dave’s dad, also dealt with similar issues, but stopped short of violence. But the anger and yelling, was that abuse? Long dead, should he be hated or forgiven as a flawed man? Dave, was challenged differently than his forebears, a better man? Or blessed by standing on the shoulders of his father and grandfather’s examples?
The iniquities of the father can be a curse or it can be a blessing to the 3rd and 4th generation – if you put your stake in the ground.
Lis and Dave Marr