Family and the victim card
Family
is a tricky place. It’s a place where love and abuse roam. How is that
possible? I thought blood was thinker than water? Why is it then that we seem
to drown easier in a family? They say you can pick your friends but you can’t
pick your family. People quote that while rolling their eyes. Those people know
the truth. Family is good and bad all rolled into one.
I grew up with the Walton’s being
the perfect family on TV. The Cunningham’s on Happy Days were a close second. I
pick the Munster’s third but it’s probably Leave it to beaver. The millennials
have just checked out of my blog. Believe it or not it was not that many years
ago when family was portrayed as a good thing. Mom was nice and made cookies. What
kid does not want cookies? Dad did not abandon the family but worked hard for
the family. Kids were punished and church was ok. Perfect, right?
Somewhere along the way two things
happened. One is that the dirty truth about family leaked out. Things were not
so rosy at home. Dad’s drank, mom’s cheated, and kids got in trouble. Those kids
grew up to invent number two: the victim card. We have perfected that card
today. It’s now a tattoo, substance abuse rights, and the ability to not care. If
it does not benefit us, then it is phobic, racist, and not green. The victim
card comes out every year in parades, protests, and any other abused individual
right.
That brings me back to the family. Those
hippie kids grew up. They hated certain things as a kid. What they have found
is that they have the freedom to eradicate those hates. They crushed church. They
crushed substance laws. They crushed sex laws. The freedom to impose your
preferences rules today. Never again will society have laws restricting
personal freedom. The victim card is now a museum. In there you find parents,
the strap, and community centers like church. This part of the museum is the
horror section that replaced things like Hitler and genocide.
What goes God have to say about this
touchy topic? Numbers 14:18 says “The
LORD is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet
he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin
of the parents to the third and fourth generation.” That seems harsh. Why
do the kids of unborn generations need to pay? To me it’s more of a warning
than a punishment.
What my parents did mattered. What my
parents allowed mattered. Their children will go further. Their children will
do more and allow more. The verse above is more about the ball rolling. Children
learn. They are sponges. I went through divorce. It never occurred to me that
my kids were recording everything. Making their minds up on everything. This next
generation had a new opinion based on my past actions. To some degree, the
things that go wrong in their lives were spawned by the parent’s choices. It also
produced the victim card.
I know someone who is about 50. This
person was abused as a little kid. For about 45 years they have been haunted by
the victim status. How long is the victim card valid? That is a good question.
50 years, 100, years, or how about 200 years. Non-White people are still
playing a victim card for distant generations. Kids are still playing the
victim card for the sins of their parents 45 years ago. Maybe it should never
end. Just keep blaming forever and ever. Never getting past the sins of the
past generations. Sounds like punishing yourself to the third and fourth
generation.
So, here you are. Your hurt and
abused. I do feel for the wrongs we have endured. Isn’t life about moving
forward. Isn’t life about conquering hills and mountains. If we just sit down
and hold up our card, then what. There will be no healing. There will be no
positive future. Oh, Patrick the victim card will bring restitution. Really? Ask
the Natives when that will happen? Ask the African Americans when that will
happen? Ask the raped, robbed, and abused.
There is a great saying. The only way around your obstacle is through.
Are you through with the victim card yet?
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