Sins of the Father

This morning my children were embroiled in the typical Saturday morning argument that involved, toys, television, parental attention and pecking rights. Now, in the past I have to admit I have had a very hard time with these kinds of fights, but have learned that to some extent it is better to let these things play themselves out and see what happens. Often the children are able to come to some resolve without my interference, and it is usually best that way, though admittedly I grind my teeth quite a bit waiting for the resolve to happen.

This morning however the fighting escalated quite quickly and rather than wait for blows I opted for a cooling off time and sent the instigators to their respective corners of the ring a.k.a. their rooms. My oldest, of course though this was completely unjust as she had done nothing wrong, and just needed to explain why she was completely in the right, and yet I sent her to her room anyway, as I later explained to her that I was uninterested in the politics of the fight, right/wrong, true/untrue, good/bad and merely wanted the two of them to have a time out from their argument before they proceeded any further.

In truth, from what I gathered from the argument that I heard, I think my oldest, Daryl, was probably right, and had this been a court of law, she probably ought not have had to face the same consequences. Or should she?

I am often amused by the campaign rhetoric of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. One of the tactics of the Obama campaign is to continually point out that Hillary Voted on the unpopular war in Iraq. Hillary in turn, seems to say that she has no regrets about the vote, and that the real problems in Iraq stem from the Bush administrations mismanagement of the aftermath of the invasion. Interesting.

As I recall the mentality of the pre war American was WMD? There’s WMD? Let’s go kick his ass! I remember feeling very powerless as what I perceived to be the raging mob marched us down the street, breaking windows and looting national pride as they led us inevitably into war. That might be a little heavy handed, after all time does blur these images. But if a mod did march down the street, breaking and looting, who is responsible? David Miller in his book on national responsibility writes, “ If we identify with their group and its common ethos. These facts are sufficient for us to hold members collectively responsible for the results of that ethos, without having to trace the exact causal relationship between the actions of any one particular member and those consequences.” The long and short of it? We are all of us responsible, regardless of whether or not we broke a window or stole a television.

Alas Daryl, Hillary and Barak, if you subscribe to a common public culture, (Family, Nation) despite individual differences in belief, you participate in mutually beneficial practices whose shape you can influence. Miller, “The more strongly these conditions obtain, the more appropriate it is to hold nations responsible for their political actions, and the consequences that flow from these.”

Is this what the Bible means when it says the son shall pay for the sins of the father? Well the nice thing about Hillary and Barack’s debate is that it goes something like this: “It wasn’t me, it was the one armed man.” Suggesting that despite Millers claims, individuals are differently responsible. To which it could be argued that those difference might be more or less important depending on the political or cultural make up of the system. A family is not a purely democratic state, and in a totalitarian state its members have no say on its country’s policies. There are exceptions galore. Still in a democratic state I think we take national responsibility very seriously, we are in for the good, we are in for that bad, that is why, when the invasion of Iraq is handled so poorly, we take it very personally. We are all responsible.

There are times when I go insane listening to my children fight and squabble, I don’t always react with patience, and I intervene too much. On more than one occasion I have found myself owing them an amends for getting involved in situations that they were handling quite nicely, but to which I had to poke my big fat mouth and made things worse. The important thing for me is to take responsibility for my actions in those times, learn from my experiences and try to make better decisions in the future.