Give Your Kids a Consistent Message

Scripture: Genesis 25.21-34; Hebrews 12.4-11


“Isaac loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob.” In some ways that sentence tells you all you need to know about the strife that would follow between the two brothers. Why do we give your hearts to some more than others? Sometimes the reasons are not that mysterious or lofty. Isaac’s reason for loving Esau – “he had a taste for wild game.” Therefore the son who would provide it would be his favorite naturally. That might sound trivial and silly to you, but what are some of the reasons today’s parents favor one child over another? Older son does better at sports than younger. Sister gets better grades than brother. We gravitate sometimes to one child over another for some pretty flimsy reasons. People who work with children and youth can tell you that there are some kids that you just instinctively like and there are others, well, you have to guard yourself against displaying outright hostility toward them.

The key here is that, though we may find ourselves endeared to a child for their gifts and skills and personalities, we must never play favorites when it comes to loving our children. All of you baby boomers grew up on the Brady Bunch that classic blended family where everything had happy endings. One memorable episode is when the middle daughter, Jan, the classic middle child goes into a funk over how popular her older sister Marsha is. Everywhere Jan goes at school, at home, at work, she hears how great Marsha is. Finally, Jan expresses her frustration with the classic line – “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!” Do you think our kids ever feel the frustration of being constantly compared to their siblings? Maybe Esau felt that way too – Jacob, Jacob, Jacob!

It is important that our kids hear and see a consistent message that they are loved no matter their accomplishments or failures or personalities. The kid with the moody or difficult personality must know they are as loved as the kid with the sunny disposition.

That brings me to my second point: the message of love is often communicated in the boundaries and framework of discipline that we provide for our kids. It’s easy sometimes to look at our own parents and point out where they went wrong. It’s so easy and enjoyable, in fact, that let’s do it now! I remember basically two rules that my dad gave me for growing: Don’t be late for supper and don’t let the fire in the furnace go out. I found out the hard way what happened when I violated those rules. Now, all in all, those are bad rules to have, but in retrospect, them being the only rules he gave me seems a bit odd. It seems there could have been more, and more important stuff for him to cover with me.

My dad isn’t the only one. One of the rules Jennifer got from her dad growing up was this: Always kill porcupines when you see them. I’m not kidding. In fact, he still has that rule. The other day we were visiting and I mentioned to my father-in-law that we had seen a porcupine crossing the road in Maple Hollow the night before. He got a gleam in his eye and said, “Did you kill it?”

Sometimes our rules don’t seem big enough for the relationships that we are trying to foster. Preachers have a term for this. It’s called majoring in the minors. We advise against it. As parents we must avoid the trap of majoring on minor stuff. It’s so easy to become nags and broken records about relatively trivial stuff especially when we aren’t communicating the big stuff. Am I saying kids shouldn’t be made to clean their rooms and take out the garbage and do their homework? Of course they should. But discipline must always come in the context of the overarching message – you are loved. We are proud of you.

There was a prophecy concerning Jacob and Esau – they are two nations in your belly Rebekkah, and Jacob is the greater one. Unfortunately, we see those prophecies and think we need to make them happen. Maybe sometimes God, rather than prescribing what should happen, is describing what will happen. Like when the Scripture says God hardened pharaoh’s heart, I’ve always wondered if God simply knew this was going to happen and went with it rather than made it happen himself. Maybe Isaac and Rebekkah spent too much time worrying about who was going to be greater and who was going to get the birthright and the inheritance, when they should have spent the time fostering a consistent message of love and unity in their family.

The episodes we read about this family in Genesis give the impression that they were not a tight knit, Brady kind of family. I believe Isaac loved Rebekkah, but somehow that didn’t translate into a sense of unity. Maybe, they didn’t let that love show enough.

The story in the movie On Golden Pond is one of a troubled relationship between a daughter, played by Jane Fonda, and her aging father, played by her real-life father, Henry Fonda. In movie it is apparent that every time these two are around each other tension builds and sparks fly. At one point, the daughter vents her undisguised contempt and venom towards her father onto her mother, calling her father an s.o.b. The mother immediately slaps her daughter’s face and, shaking with rage says, that s.o.b. is my husband and I’ll thank you not to talk about him that way around me anymore.

It’s a powerful message – one that parents would do well to draw a lesson from. We know the faults of our spouses better than anyone else. It’s easy to be their harshest critics. For the sake of your kids, don’t be. For the sake of your marriage too, but at the very least, for the sake of your kids, parents must be each other’s strongest allies. Show your kids that you love the one you married. Show your kids that you and your spouse are a united front when it comes to love and discipline. See cause kids learn, if it works with you, to divide and conquer you. They learn to play mom against dad and dad against mom. Jennifer and I disagree about boundaries and methods of discipline sometimes, but we have learned the value of saying, “Whatever your mother said is what I say.”

I know divorced couples with kids who have learned to communicate this message with their kids, and it makes for a better family situation and it above all, benefits their children.
Jacob and Esau missed that message. And you can see in their family tree the same mistakes of favoritism being repeated over and over. Isaac was favored over Ishmael. Jacob was favored over Esau. Jacob’s son, Joseph, was favored over his brothers. And there is always trouble because of it. But maybe the best message in the story of Jacob and Esau is this: as messed up as this family was, God still blessed and used them for many good things.

You may think your family is messed up too. God is with messed up families and God uses messed up people. Let me leave you with this: “Children, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his child.”