Week 10

   This week's topic was on fathers and providing. 

How Work has Changed the Family

    Before the industrial revolution, work was mostly centered around the home and family. Men were mostly farmers, thus their children and wives would be present and included in their daily work, it wasn't separate from home life. After the industrial revolution, work turned into something outside the home, men would go for 40-60 hours a week to their workplace and not see their families for that time. This created the need for women to maintain the home and raise the children mostly on her own while her husband worked. There came a disconnect between fathers and their children and wives because he just wasn't there and the bond was not maintained. School becoming a place to go then took children from the home for the majority of the week as well, meaning they were being raised by teachers more than their mothers and fathers, creating another disconnect. That's not to say that work and school are evil and should not be attended, but it is to say that when everyone is home, there should be some effort made to connect and bond to make up for where it is lost. Having a device always  present doesn't help with this, it is important to disconnect from your cell-phone and connect with your family more often. 

Importance of Fathers

    As stated previously, the industrial revolution took fathers out of the home for the majority of the week, leaving mothers to do the teaching and nurturing, creating a closer bond between her and the children that the father wasn't a part of. While women have unique capacities to attend to their children, there is still great importance in the lessons a father has to teach, especially as children become teenagers.

Working Moms

    In today's world, women have a lot more pressure to, "do it all," all being motherhood, school, a job, and maintaining a home. If you're not doing all the tasks of a wife and mother on top of a job, you're not successful. Success today is based so much more on money than it is in actual accomplishment. Some people feel women need to work for a second income, but it's been found that that second income is costing more money than it provides. Without a homemaker, you have to pay someone else for those jobs, without a present parent you have to pay for daycare, you have to pay for more transportation for two individuals going to work, you have to pay for quicker meals as there is no time to cook, all of these expenses add up and result in the family having less money than even one income would make with a mother in the home. People today will look down on women that want to be traditional wives and mothers, but the benefit the the home and the woman's happiness and life satisfaction is significant. 

Family Work

    Family work referring to chores and tasks around the house, I am referring to going back to the idea of work and family life being one as before the industrial revolution. To complete necessary tasks with your kids present allows for time to bond and creates an opportunity for them to learn. Most parents will find that their children want to be involved in those activities because mom or dad is doing it. It might take longer for a task to get done, but that's time and experience that you wont get back and that you won't find anywhere else. 

    We've all developed the idea overtime that work is awful, and hard. and the last thing we want to do, but what if we didn't teach that to our kids? What if we included them and worked as a group, keeping the fun in hard tasks? Creating an opportunity to cooperate and work together makes the work more fun, think of camping. Camping is hard, but we still do it because it's fun to struggle and find solutions with your loved ones. 

Include God in Your Families

    There are a lot of things you can't plan for in life, be it medical emergencies, housing emergencies, or other things of the like. It is important not to lose your faith in these moments, trust the Lord to provide and help you through. He will not leave you not abandon you, there is always a way through Him.