Our Parents

So what do you think of your parents? What i think about my momma is she is kind, the best teacher ever, loves people and animals, is recsorsful, submits to her father and her husband(my father), is a wonderful cook, loves me and Levi, and loves God and pleaseing Him. What i think an=bout my daddy is he is a hard worker, he loves us ALOT, he is a wonderful carpender( he built us a tree house that is 12 or 14 ft. tall! ), he is kind, loving, sweet, caring, loves us and mommy, and is a very good leader of this household.
Well, tell me your thoughts about your parents too!
Jordyn

Well... my mother has multiple sclerosis so she's tired a lot but I know she tries really hard to be a good wife and mother, but sometimes she can't keep up with everything and then she feels really bad and it's hard to comfort her. She's a really good cook and I know she loves my sister and I a lot. While we agree on a lot of things, there are some things we don't agree on or don't try to do to the same extent. She doesn't agree with me on headcovering or plain/modest dress but she respects my wish to do it (she says she's proud of me and she often glares at random teenagers when we go out when they look weirdly at me). She's afraid of submitting to much for my father for some reason, but I know she loves him a lot. Also it was my mother who taught me most of the important things I know, like cooking, sewing, knitting, looking after children. She was my first piano teacher, too.

Other things about my mother are that she was born in Swan Hill, Victoria, a tiny little town which has actually grown quite a bit recently. Her mother was from Melbourne and her father was from Sydney, the son of a shop-owner during WWII. Grandad is an Anglican minister and they moved around quite a bit. My mother has an older sister, Joy, who is a year older than her, a younger brother, David, who is about three years younger, and a younger sister, Jo, who is about another three years younger than Uncle David. When my mother was about 8, my mother's family moved to Moe, in the Dandenongs, again a small town which I've been to a few times. When she was 16, they moved again to Port Augusta, which is called the 'crossroads of Australia' because it is both on the coast and in the desert, between the Outback and the mallee scrub, and at the top of the Yorke Peninsula. My mother come down to Adelaide for university and qualified as a teacher. She couldn't get a job as a teacher so she was a governess on a cattle station for a year.

My father I know tries his best to do what God says, even when it goes against what he's been taught in church (my mother has more of a problem with this). Although he didn't like me covering to start he now agrees that I should be doing it. My father and I get on pretty well most of the time, but he and my sister are so similar that they are always arguing. Neither will admit that they may be the one at fault. He often tells us "Children, obey your parents in everything" (Colossians 3:20) but he doesn't seem to ever remember "Fathers, do not provoke your children" (Colossians 3:21) and he quite regularly provokes my sister into an argument. I'm not sure if he realises it, though. My father likes working in the garden and building and constructing things. He built my sister and I a cubby house when I was about 6, but it's since fallen apart. He likes keeping animals (although he sees them as food) and he was the one who convinced my mother to get chickens. I think he's a pretty good leader in the house, although he's under the misguided impression that he can cook.

My father was born in England but as his father was in the British Army, grew up on an army estate in Wales. They finally settled in the New Forest when he was about eight and he went to a boarding school about five minutes' drive from their house from about that age. His parents are pretty upper-class, and it was the 'done thing'. He moved schools at thirteen and was sent to a boarding school in the north of Scotland. He's got quite a few mental scares from being separated from his parents at such a young age; he was bullied a lot through school and one joke we have is that he was even punched by Prince Edward (who he provoked by saying he was a communist, which he wasn't). My father started learning French from a young age (nursery school, aged about 4) and German at 13, and he is fluent in both. He also speaks a bit of Russian, Italian, Chinese, Indonesion, and goodness only knows what other languages. He lived in Austria for a bit to he speaks German with an Austrian accent. Although my father was raised in the Church of England, it was nominal only and he doesn't believe that either of his parents were Christians (although he believes that his mother may have accepted Jesus shortly before she died). My father became a Christian as a young man (he may have been a teenager or in his early twenties, I'm not sure) and began attending the Baptist church in the next town (which his parents didn't approve of; it was the 'done' thing for their class). Since his mother was a New Zealand citizen (her parents were both New Zealanders of British descent, her father was in the Indian Army, and she was actually born in Pakistan when it was part of India!), my father moved to NZ for a year at around the age of twenty-two, staying with his aunt and uncle. He then went back to England for a bit before coming out to Australia using his NZ passport (Australia and NZ citizens can basically swap countries whenever they please).

So... yeah. That's my parents. I guess I know my home and family aren't perfect but I know that they both try very hard. There are lots of factors they can't control which maybe make it harder for them than your average family, so I think they're doing a pretty good job.

from Rachel.

Due to a question I have been asked, I wish to clarify that both of my parents are Christians. My sister claims that she is but my father and I are both sceptical of this. My father believes much the same as I do regarding a lot of matters, including headcovering, although he says he isn't going to force my mother and sister to headcover because it's such a difficult thing to do in the world today. My father is my sounding-board for a lot of Christian matters... I can discuss things with him a lot, those things which confuse me. He's quite helpful a lot of the time and willing to listen to my thoughts, too, because he knows I care about the answer.

My father was raised in the Church of England and both of his parents are what I refer to as 'nominal Christians', meaning they went to church most weeks, but it was for appearances only and they didn't really believe it all. They were also very superstitious, about things which seem really weird and un-Christian, like not being able to eat blackberries after a certain time of the year because it's bad luck. Dad found Christ when he was a young man and began going to the Baptist church in the next town. During his year in New Zealand, he was baptised. Like me, he doesn't claim any particularly denomination, although like me, his beliefs are closest to what Baptist churches believe - in fact, the only friend's church he has said yes to me visiting right off without wanting to know more about it was an Independant Baptist church. He doesn't even say yes right away for Baptist Union churches like the one we go to! Anyway, he does lean towards more pentecostal/charismatic churches (unlike me), such as the Assemblies of God.

My mother is the second child of an Anglican minister. Although my father would disagree, I believe that both of my mother's parents are/were Christians. My maternal grandmother was one of my greatest roll models (she died almost six years ago) and I think she was a very good example of a Christian wife and mother. Although I disagree on a number of points of Grandad's beliefs, I know that he is saved and he loves God with everything he is. Mum I know is a Christian, but sometimes I'm not sure how strong a Christian she is... sometimes I think she relies on her own strength and not God's when she desperately should. For some reason she still calls herself an Anglican, although she was baptised into a non-denominational church about eight years ago. But I love my mother and know she is saved, so I don't want to sound like she's not a Christian or anything.

I love both of my parents very much and know that they are doing their very best for me and by God, so I didn't want to sound like they were terrible and non-Christians or anything. I hope this clears some things up,

from Rachel.

Thank you for this explaination! It tells me more about you. So i have another question, what does your mother disagree with you about modest dress and headcovering?
Jordyn

I'm not sure, exactly. I don't think she's ever really thought about it so much, but I've been talking about it a lot more recently and she hasn't been objecting, so hopefully God is working in her!

About the modest clothes, my family has always considered themselves to be fairly modest-dressers. Where my dad's from, clothing was pretty modest/covering most of the time, due in no small part I think to the weather. He's always had guidelines for what we could wear and would stop us from wearing anything he termed 'indecent' (for example, no short shorts or miniskirts, no low-cut necklines, wear shirts/dresses with sleeves on to the table, no bare midriffs or walking around topless/naked, even after a bath [which my sister did a lot when she was small and didn't know better]). When we were small, my sister and I wore a LOT of dresses, I think mostly due to our grandmothers when we were very small (lots of smocked dresses) and because it was sort of fashionable when we were older (around the turn of the century, these sort of stretchy sort of floral dresses were popular for young girls. They're hard to explain and you can't get them anymore.).

Mostly my clothes are because I feel they're more comfortable. My mother likes the fact that I dress modestly (as opposed to my sister, who does her best to go the other way, much to my parents' distress) and I think she just doesn't understand it. Recently her own clothes have been getting less and less modest (lower necklines, for one) and when I pointed it out, she said something about it being the fashion and not being able to find modest-er clothing. This is a bit of nonesense I think as I often find more decent clothing in her size. I'm not sure whether her being less modest in dress is because of me being more modest, and I pray it's not, but it's been a very gradual thing and I don't think she's noticed. I know she's proud of me for dresses modestly and sticking to my beliefs but she doesn't want to do it herself. Again, I'm not sure why.

My father has also been getting less strict about clothing but not to the point of wearing un-modest clothing, but he just seems to care less about looking neat and orderly. There was a time when he wouldn't wear jeans to church, he would always wear nice trousers, a button-down shirt, and a tie, even in summer, and maybe a jacket in winter. Now he seems content to wear jeans and a t-shirt or polo shirt to church. Sometimes when I worry that he looks a bit daggy, and question him about it (it's difficult because I don't want to seem demanding or presumptuous - I'm his daughter, after all), and usually he just hasn't realised that what he's wearing might be inappropriate, and goes and changes. He hasn't stopped my sister from wearing anything in a while, but mostly she hasn't been exposing her body so much as she used to. She hasn't been wearing skirts as much as she used to, but he doesn't mind that so much.

In conclusion, I frankly have no idea where my family and I disagree on clothing. It's confusing and since I have really definitive beliefs on the matter (most of the time I wear what I wear because it's more comfortable, sometimes physical comfort, but I don't think I would be psychologically comfortable in a short skirt and if it's windy, I continually shake my skirt out so it hangs all the way down my legs again [instead of creaping up by being blown by the wind], even though I wear stockings or long socks and pantaloons underneath). Most of the time my parents and I believe much the same things about modestly and clothing, I just take it a little bit further - generally we all agree on what areas of the body oughtn't to be uncovered, but where they'll say that thighs shouldn't be uncovered and wear a longer pair of shorts, I would say that thighs shouldn't be uncovered and wear a below-the-knee skirt because that way it's looser and won't show the shape of the thighs so much. It's confusing. It's easier to say where we differ with headcovering, so onwards:

My mother believes, I think, that the hair is the covering. I've not really discussed this with her beyond the initial "I beleive God is telling me to wear a headcovering and this is why" talk about two years ago, although I haven't refrained from mentioning my views in conversation where appropriate (and my sister and father often comment on my headcovering, so this is fairly regular). I don't really understand her beliefs on this, especially as if she believes that hair is the covering, surely she believes that *long* hair is the covering and thus why did she ask me to cut her and my sister's hair two weeks ago? I did it because she's my mother and she asked me to, but I did question her at the time, and she just brought up something about split ends and God surely not wanting us to walk around the dreadful-looking split-ended hair. As I had chopped about 5 inches of hair of hers, I fail to see how this was relevent... and I refrained from mentioning that if God wanted us to wear a headcovering, no-one would see the split ends anyway. But I did find an interesting article here http://christianinstitute.com/headcoverings/trimmingsplitends.htm about trimming split ends without cutting length, in case you're interested.

So I'm not sure what's up with that but I think that it's mostly she knows that she ought to cover and/or have long hair, but she just doesn't want to for some reasons. I know she finds long hair hot and hard to care for. I think the covering is more it being a socially unacceptable thing to do - at least, unlike most Christians, she knows it's the right thing and choses not to do it, as opposed to so many others who live in ignorance. But she's grown more open about my headcovering and is willing to discuss it with me, so I pray God is working in her heart on this. She understands how important it is to me, and would never ask me to stop wearing the headcovering. She used to ask me whether I would take it off for some things, but I think she has realised that I wouldn't do that... or maybe she knows what I'm doing is right and thus won't stop me. I don't know.

As for my sister... well, she won't even think about it. She listens, now (she used to ignore it and me for being 'embarrassing'), but at this point she would never wear a headcovering or even wear skirts most of the time. She's a lot more worried about her social life than I ever was (I was always a bit of a loner and did what I wanted rather than what it was popular to do) and wouldn't do anything that would be percieved as weird. But at least she listens to why I do it rather than ignoring me, so I trust that God is working in her heart, too. Perhaps when we visit America (which is a distinct possibility for late this year), we can visit you and you could talk to her about it - she's closer to your age and might listen to you more than she does me, as I've always been a little weird.

Anyway, I'm sure this has been very confusing and not answered your question at all. In short, I don't know. But writing this all down has been very helpful for me sorting some things out about it all. I guess sometimes I'm a little jealous of you, having parent who are much on the same page as you about clothing and headcovering and everything. My family is going through it all at completely different paces, and I can only pray that God is working in each of them on everything. God is all-knowing and all-powerful afterall; thus he must know what is best. Perhaps there is another area of their lives which he is working in and I don't know about it.

from Rachel.

We always try to wear nice clothes to church, and when company is over, but like when we play, we just wear what we have on, if it is not church clothes. I wouldn't wear anything too fancy to church, because t me it is being prideful, show9ing off your stuff, you know what i mean? But just, modest, clean, and simple. That's how i like it! There are some ladies at our church that were very immodest clothing, but they don't know what they are doing wrong. It is just that since they have been doing it for a long time (maybe their whole life)then they don't know any better and if they do know better, but they do it anyway, then that's a big big problem. but they don'tknow how much that they are revealing. Like mostly their entire leg, low cut shirts, see throught backs. And it looks just so disgusting! Momma said that she read something and it said " Immodest dress is like rolling in manue. No one is going to notice it but pigs . Signed Real Men" I agree!

Jordyn