Much has changed in the more than forty years that I can account for. Things that were not heard before are now things of daily life. The televisions have color and I have children. They ride in SUV watching DVD on LCD TV with IF wireless headphones while listening to cable TV. Did I mention cable TV? Oh well, come along as I listen to my favorite cable TV station on my unfading satellite radio as we talk about our family occupations in the woods and back roads of our Blue Ridge Mountain home.

I often wonder how my dear old tobacco gets dipped; The brothers grandmother wearing a beanie would relate to our 21st century life. I especially wonder what she would think of the Quads. Did I mention we have a set of Quads? Sometimes I get a little lost in all the concussion and repeat myself. Yes we have two wonderful daughters who are currently 12 and 9 years old and a set of 3 year old quadruplets.

Our family doesn’t fit your average demographic by almost any of the measures you use. Of course we have all six children in three pregnancies. My wife, in addition to being a gold medal mother, is also a very successful businesswoman. All of this has led me to be the domestic dad of six. None of which were on our hit list when we did our premarital counseling. When asked, I prefer the title “Quadfather”. I’m interested to see how Granny would fare with all of this because of the mixed reactions and weird comments I’ve encountered from others over the past few years. Grandma would be heartened to find that we’ve stayed close to the Faith. Not the Brethren faith, but rather interdenominational, New Apostolic-Reformed, Holy Spirit-filled Christianity. Then again, this and our African-American shepherd might do more to sink the one born to her into the 18th century ship than all the other changes combined.

Yes, things have changed. I feel lucky to have been born deep enough in the 1900s to have seen the oldies and the old ways. However, I have yet to be young enough to be shoulder deep in my son’s most unique and formative era.

I will never forget my grandmother forcefully stating that the first Moon Walks were done in Hollywood when I was in training and that the ’69 mustang was a new ride. Nor will I forget the times she was lost in the titanic struggle of good and evil found on Wrasslin TV, and would insist with equal ferocity that these events were real and important to our personal sanctity and national well-being.

Maybe Granny had a hard time with the changing times around her, but I know she had a firm grasp on the real stuff, the serious truth and the importance of God and family and the need to prioritize them and keep them together.

Granny was a temporary blessing in my life. When I was fourteen, my mother had two divorces and a nervous breakdown. About 40% of my growing up was spent in a single mother household with Grandma at home. My other grandmother was also raising several of her grandchildren. They were both widowed before I could walk and I never had a close or lasting father/son relationship during any of this period. I guess, in many unfortunate ways, our family was ahead of our time. But Grandma stood there trying to impart to me in words and deeds these two important foundational truths along with other insights that today are wry reminiscences about herbs and roots, the phases of the moon, planting, and the fight to purge evil from our coast through television. Wrasslin.

I would have loved to see Granny’s reaction to so much of the technological and unique dynamics of our special time and family. I can’t help but believe that she would see and understand how the two most serious truths are very much a part of the fabric of this family. They are what matters. They are the tradition we have embraced and will not lose.

It has been these very challenges and unusual twists that the Lord has seen fit to inject into our lives that have served the most to remind me of what I have been missing. Looking back I can see and appreciate what Granny was trying to insert so long ago into the confusion and isolation of a broken, mixed up and re-broken childhood. In this process and between many long nights and endless diaper changes, I have been given the opportunity to be the kind of dad I never had.

Leading me to the choice to be a father on a scale unheard of here, I found a loving and benevolent Father who brought me healing and restoration that I had not realized I needed in my life. Although some may think that we are out of order or that we should even sympathize. As some seem to see, they are commitments and expenses that would curtail his lifestyle, limit his opportunities for entertainment, and challenge his perceptions of Christian family life. I think I have seen the miraculous and have heard the solid and constant beating of the Father’s heart in two things, priorities and in order, God and Family. No roles or religion, vicarious fulfillment, expectations of tradition or self-actualization and satisfaction. All of which seems to haunt much of my generation as we have become “The Fathers”.

This series, if it ever sees the light of day, is my prayerful effort to share in this parenting world of broken, blended, broken, single, and wounded families, the healing, purpose, and encouragement that the seasons can seem. difficult and dark, but they change. , and that we may find our greater insight and understanding of God’s guidance and faithfulness by changing us and impacting through us on the lives of the little ones who follow us. In our difficult seasons as they walk to their appointments with adult destiny by our side, we miss so much that we may never get back if our focus is on ourselves, the tough ships or what or how well others are doing or a persistent neurotic sense of perfection. and performance Seasons change, we must embrace each one. Technologies change, people change, they get old, grow and leave, but God, his fidelity to each generation and the heart of his Parents have never changed and will never change or leave us. It is best to imitate its heartbeat in our priority and commitment to the loving families we create. care and nurture.

Embrace with me, if you will, the fun, the bewilderment, and the stimuli that lie on my path less traveled. I think you can find a lot in there that you will recognize even if you are not a quad parent.