Becoming the Dad Your Daughter Needs by Rick Johnson

Author:Rick Johnson [Johnson, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Parenting, Fathers and daughters—Religious aspects—Christianity, Child rearing—Religious aspects—Christianity, Daughters—Religious life, REL012030, FAM034000, FAM020000
ISBN: 9781441219756
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2020-04-24T00:00:00+00:00

Spoiled Rotten

Our culture has evolved from one of working hard and earning what we want to one of self-focus and self-interest. People (including children) expect the best for nothing. Not only that, but we have become a people with no gratitude for what we have or what is given to us. Many of the people our ministry works with are not very grateful for the things we give them, such as free resource materials or low-cost admission to our seminars. In fact, we can depend on the fact that those who do not pay will be the least likely to show up, despite our going out of our way to make accommodations for child care. And if they do attend, they will be the most likely to complain and write lower evaluations than the people who paid.

Have you ever been around an ungrateful teenager? You know—the one who does not appreciate the fact that her parents have paid the mortgage every month, put food on the table, paid for braces, and provided every other conceivable need she’s had for the past sixteen years or so. Our children today, perhaps more than any previous generation, have an entitlement mentality. During the sixteen years I owned an environmental engineering firm, I interviewed and hired dozens of young people straight out of college. Nearly to a person they had unrealistic expectations of what they would be doing, how much they would be paid, and what benefits they would receive. Most seemed to feel that they should start out at the same pay and prestige level that their fathers had after working for twenty-five years. I was hugely disappointed at the lack of self-motivation and work ethic most of them displayed.

When I first started a full-time ministry, money was tight. Kelsey was about fifteen years old at that time. Being a good steward of the resources God provided every month required me to pay the bills in order of importance: mortgage first, followed by utilities, then all other bills. Last on the list was cable television. One month I did not have enough money to pay the cable bill, and our cable was shut off. Kelsey asked her mother why the television wouldn’t work. My wife replied, “I guess your dad must not have paid the bill.”

You’d have thought I had sentenced her to live in a Russian gulag. My wife finally said, “You have a job. Why don’t you just pay the bill yourself?” After stammering and sputtering for several minutes, Kelsey finally replied, “No, because Frank will watch TV!” We laugh about that now, but at the time it was a clear indication of the entitlement mentality and ungrateful attitude that she had. In fact, if I recall correctly, my wife did not even have to point out her folly but merely looked at her, causing her to slink away in shame for having made such an obviously selfish comment.

I frequently see mothers and fathers who let their children run through the store screaming and yelling, totally unsupervised.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.