FAMILY

And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death.

—Matthew 10:12

1556 Carter Urges More Family Life

Top White House staff personnel were urged in a handwritten memorandum from President Jimmy Carter to spend “an adequate amount of time” with their families to assure a stable family life. Written on White House stationery and signed “J. Carter,” the memorandum says:

“I am concerned about the family lives of all of you. I want you to spend an adequate amount of time with your husbands, wives, and children, and also to involve them as much as possible in our White House life. We are going to be here a long time, and all of you will be more valuable to me and the country with rest and a stable home life. In emergencies we’ll all work full time. Let me have your comments.”

1557 Like Mother Like Son

The following is a United Press dispatch from New York:

Magistrate Anna Kross called a mother from among spectators in court to take care of her wayward son—charged with throwing bottles through plate-glass windows. But when the mother, a demure- looking woman, stepped up to the bench, she was arrested on a charge considerably more serious than against her son. She was accused of using a broken bottle to cut the throat of a woman neighbor. The woman neighbor was in the hospital for two weeks.

The mother had got into a row with her neighbor in a saloon. She picked up a beer bottle, broke off the bottom by striking it on a table and went to work with the jagged edge. Hardly a mother to assume any lofty moral tone with her boy for throwing bottles through plate-glass windows.

1558 Disappearing Husbands

In a speech on “I Bring ’Em Back” broadcast over the Columbia network, Daniel Eisenberg said, “In sixteen years I have located about 165,000 missing men, women and children. My organization is the only commercial one of its kind. It is designed primarily for people who don’t want to go to the police or to the Traveler’s Aid.

“The most popular disappearance act I call “The Case of the Missing Husband.” In sixteen years I’ve been asked to trace more than 75,000 husbands who have done the Arabian tent-folding stunt. And, this will probably startle you: I’ve been asked to locate only twelve wives in that same period! There’s a fairly simple explanation for that. Most women are not equipped to earn a living. They are accustomed to the social protection of a home and family, and very few of them have any money of their own with which to start on a flight into the unknown.

“It’s not the young husbands who run away from their wives. Just the opposite. My figures show that out of 100,000 husbands who disappear, close to eighty-five percent are men past the age of forty.”

—Herbert V. Prochnow

1559 Only Needs A Garage

Dr. S. Parkes Cadman tells about a girl who detested housework and saw no need for it. When the young man to whom she was engaged showed her a house he planned to buy, she commented:

“A home: why do I need a home? I was born in a hospital, educated in a college, courted in an automobile, and expect to be married in a church. We can live out of the delicatessen and paper bags. I spend my mornings on the golf course, my afternoons at my clubs, and then my evenings at the movies. When I die I am going to be buried at the undertaker’s. All I really need is a garage!”

—Selected

1560 Sobbing Over S. O. B.

There has been organized a group in Boston called “Sons of Bosses International” (SOB). The group meets monthly to discuss how to make life easier for themselves and better understand working in a family-owned company.

It seems like a father and his son make poor business partners. Once this was looked on by young men as the shortest road to success, now taking over a family business is seen by more and more of them as a fast way to a nervous breakdown.

For the founder of the business, it is reasoned, it is intensely hard to delegate responsibility to the son and almost impossible for him to step down. The son usually must cope with long hours, low pay and agonizing wait for the old man to retire. If the son marries, it is more complicated—the wife wants him home, the father wants him to work late, the wife wants an immediate financial return, the father thinks that his son should work for peanuts because the business eventually will be his.

1561 Father’s Horrible Will

A man by the name of Donohoe penned the following will July 1, 1935. “Unto my two daughters, Frances Marie and Denise Victoria, by reason of their unfilial attitude toward a doting father. … I leave the sum of $1 to each and a father’s curse. May their respective lives be fraught with misery, unhappiness and poignant sorrow. May their deaths be soon and of a lingering, malign and torturous nature. May their souls rest in hell and suffer the torments of the damned for eternity.”

1562 Where Did This Tory Get Them ?

Britain’s House of Commons was aghast. Not only had a Tory, and M.P. from Halifax, arisen to condemn Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s government for “wandering about without ever knowing where the main road is,” but the rebellious M.P. was Maurice Macmillan, son of the Prime Minister.

When asked for his comment at question time next day, the Prime Minister placidly brought down the House by remarking that “the member from Halifax had both intelligence and independence. How he got them is not for me to say.”

—Newsweek

1563 If Jesus Came To Your House

If Jesus came to your house to spend a day or two. …

If He came unexpectedly. I wonder what you’d do.

Oh, I know you’d give your nicest room to such an honored guest.

And all the food you’d serve to Him would be the very best,

And you would keep assuring Him you’re glad to have Him there. …

But. … when you saw Him coming, would you meet Him at the door.

With arms outstretched in welcome to our heav’nly visitor?

Or would you maybe change your clothes before you let Him in,

Or hide some magazines and put the Bible where they’d been?

Would you turn off the radio and hope He hadn’t heard,

And wish you hadn’t uttered that last, loud and hasty word?

Would you hide your worldly music and put some hymn books out?

Could you let Jesus walk right in, or would you rush about?

And I wonder. … If the Savior spent a day or two with you,

Would you go right on doing the things you always do?

Would you go right on saying the things you always say?

Would life for you continue as it does from day to day?

Would your family conversation keep up its usual pace?

And would you find it hard each meal to say a table grace?

Would you sing the songs you always sing and read the book you read?

And let Him know the things on which your mind and spirit feed

Would you take Jesus with you everywhere you’d planned to go,

Or would you, maybe, change your plans for just a day or so?

Would you be glad to have Him meet your very closest friends,

Or would you hope they’d stay away until His visit ends?

Would you be glad to have Him stay forever on and on,

Or would you sigh with great relief when He at last was gone?

It might be interesting to know the things that you would do,

If Jesus came in person to spend some time with you.

—Author Unknown

1564 The Christian Home

How God must love a friendly home

Which has a warming smile,

To welcome everyone who comes

To bide a little while!

How God must love a happy home

Where song and laughter show,

Hearts full of joyous certainty

That life means ways to grow!

How God must love a loyal home

Serenely sound and sure!

When troubles come to those within,

They still can feel secure.

How God must love a Christian home

Where faith and love attest

That every moment, every hour,

He is the honored Guest!

—The Pentecostal Messenger

1565 A Dedication For Safety’s Sake

Gerald F. Liberman dedicated his anthology, The Greatest Laughs of all Time, to the women in his life: “To my mother, Mrs. Frieda Seidman; to my daughters, Laurie Jo and Mona Helena; and to my wife, Sylvia. All equally dear to me, but for safety’s sake listed here alphabetically according to first name.”

1566 Home Front Crumbling

America’s ambassador to Japan, Douglas MacArthur II, served as Counselor of the State Department under John Foster Dulles. Like Dulles, MacArthur is a hard worker. Once when Dulles telephoned the MacArthur home asking for Doug, Mrs. MacArthur mistook him for an aide and snapped irately, “MacArthur is where MacArthur always is, weekdays, Saturdays, Sundays, and nights—in that office!”

Within minutes, MacArthur got a telephoned order from Dulles: “Go home at once, boy. Your home front is crumbling.”

—Time

1567 Mommy Now Laughs At Jokes

Mrs. Arthur Sulzberger, of the newspaper dynasty, was bidding a granddaughter good-night one evening when the child remarked, “Mommy and Daddy are entertaining some very important people downstairs.”

“You’re right,” agreed Mrs. Sulzberger. “But how did you know?”

“Just listen,” advised her granddaughter. “Mommy is laughing at all of Daddy’s jokes.”

—This Week

1568 Beauty Of A House

The beauty of a house is harmony,

The security of a house is loyalty,

The joy of a house is love,

The plenty of a house is in children,

The rule of a house is service,

The comfort of a house is God Himself.

—Frank Crane

1569 Epigram On Family

•     All happy families are alike, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

—Leo Tolstoy

•     Most homes nowadays seem to be on three shifts. Father is on the night shift; mother is on the day shift, and the children shift for themselves.

•     One percent of the child’s time is spent under the influence of the Sunday school; 7 percent under the influence of the public school; 92 percent under the influence of the home.

—Albert S. Taylor

•     A 5-year-old to friend: “My father can beat your father.”

Reply: “So can my mother.”

See also: Children ; Divorce ; Father ; Husband And Wife ; Mother ; Parental Responsibility.