How to lose Friends and Embarrass Others: Dad Tips

In todays comic post, I try and portray the abortion-providing doctor as a walking victim of poor parenting techniques.

Speaking of parenting techniques, I like to tell my kids I embarrass them on purpose (actually, I do it without thinking, almost naturally, one of my hidden talents). But I like to tell them that I embarrass them on purpose now, today, because they are going to embarrass me in the future. It’s kind of like a combination of paying it forward and pre-emptive pay-back.

In reality I am a little nervous about their future. “The child is father of the man.” My children are going to become the mistakes I’ve made willy-nilly as both their father and main father figure during their formative years. If that thought strikes when I am sleeping, I am liable to wake up screaming.

This provides a segue into what I also wanted to talk about, which is the handoff of the faith baton from one generation to the next. Stats are telling us that this handoff not going all that well. The proposed solutions by experts and pundits seem to emphasize a new look. On the right they say we need a more classic and medieval baton. The left believes we need a modern, light weight baton that has been festooned with balloons and painted in rainbow colors. My purpose is not to weigh in on baton styles here.

My real purpose is to examine the concept that Love is what really evangelizes, not the style of baton. My family was brought deeper into the faith by the influence of a priest who combined being both hard-ass and soft-hearted. It really is a unique combination and as a dad I know I fail to find that sweet spot. There are different permutations of the fore mentioned qualities: the hard ass combined with a hard heart, the soft heart cushioned with a fat butt, and lastly the fat butt and hard heart combo which I all too easily gravitate towards... I need to pray to be a better dad. But we all need to pray to be a better church, also. Let us hope that God will make the next generation better than us. God grant us to be the embarrassment to the next generation rather than the next generation be an embarrassment to us. For them to embarrass us will be no small feat.