The Comforts of Home (dreams of peace)

Mother love!

I looked in a book of Norman Rockwell paintings and saw a woe-be-gone era depicted. WWar drew out beautiful reflections of loving relationships and fond family expressions. Rockwell spoke volumes about the depth of human relating which were known and felt as a result of the long absences and gruesome experiences that war afflicted our nation with at that time.
I was especially touched by the rendering of a mother and soldier son, peeling potatoes. His eyes were fixed on the potatoes, diligently peeling as though the overseer were going to make him repeat the procedure if one peel were in the mix. Her eyes were fixed upon him, lovingly and longingly, as if she would never again let him out of her sight if she could help it.
One glance at that photo of the painting, with my own eldest son just entering puberty and my youngest son, just exiting diapers ( at a ripe old age of 3 ) helped me much in my judgmental attitude about the baby-boomers permissive parenting and the chaotic societal changes that this nation endured as a result. It was as though the eternal mommahood tribunal had gotten together and decided that even if we knew it were for their own good, we would not add to the pain of another son of a mother if his spanking would be on our consciences that we caused him unnecessary pain and he was going to see some of the ghastliest sights and be hurt mercilessly, we would add not another stroke of violence to that emotional decay. I saw the female version of John Mayer’s song Daughter’s in the permissive life we gave them and I understood it. Still not agreeing…

The song of the 70’s

Mommies don’t beat your sonnies,
Your sonnies just came back from war.
Boys become soldiers, who die and see gruesome things.
So, let the government discipline them for service.



We loved so many of them into prison and drug addictions and ineffectiveness so that now the science of effectiveness and “How to” is the title of our lives. Back and forth the pendulum swings and we are now tangled in the strings of public opinion, from permissive to perfectionism and back again. Only God stands above it all. As Christians, we are at least rocked back and forth, if not tossed to and fro by the waves of public opinion…