Fathers Day
Today is Fathers Day and we are celebrating the role that fathers have
played and do play in our lives. I am fortunate in that I can trace my
family, through my father, back to 1335 when my ancestors lived and worked
in Scotland. In those days we were an integral part of the revolt against
English domination and control. Ultimately we lost the struggle for
independence and as a consequence the family moved to Ireland where they
were part of the Protestant Church being established there in competition
with the established Catholic Communion.
My Great Grandfather was a young Irish Baptist Minister in Belfast and
decided to move to South Af rica in 1877 to take up the position of the
Minister of the Baptist Church in Grahamstown. He married my Great
Grandmother who followed him to the Eastern Cape once he was settled. They
raised a large family and all of their children went on to play a role in
the life of South Africa.
My Grandfather grew up in many homes in South Africa as his father and
mother moved from Church to Church across the length and breadth of the
country. Not much money but well educated parents and access to local
schools meant that all their children grew up with a clear understanding of
Christianity and what real family life meant in that era. G W Cross was a
character and like his ancestors always played an active and informed role
in the life of his adopted land. He was well known for his love of poetry
and literature and many of the intellectuals of South African society were
friends. At the same time , he was fully aware of and engaged in the
political and economic life of the country.
These traits rubbed off onto his children and my Grandfather Graham Cross,
became a man with a fine legal mind. He married a lady whose family had
migrated from Australia and they also had a large family. He became a
Magistrate and like his father, they were always on the move as he was
promoted and sent to new Districts as a Magistrate, Senior Magistrate and
then finally as Chief Magistrate of South Africa.
Like his father he was well known as an intellectual and well connected to
the struggles and strife that characterised South Africa at the time. Like
his father he became a friend of the most powerful local political leaders
of that time, including General Smuts who played such a key role in both glo
bal and local politics and events. Even so, he raised all his children with
a strong sense of what is right and wrong and gave them the best education
that he could afford.
My father was one of those children and finished his education at Pretoria
Boys High School where he obtained a Matric and then left school to start
work at the age of 17. He had a photographic memory and would have made a
marvellous Professor of history. As with so many at that time there was
little choice of career and he joined the local Branch of an American oil
company. During the Great Depression he was told that he would have to move
to Rhodesia or face being laid off with little chance of finding alternative
employment.
It was a good move and he rapidly established himself in the City of
Bulawayo in the oil indus try and in the love of his life, which was the
theatre. He met my mother in 1938 and they were married a year later. She
was a widow and had three children which he took on as his own in every way,
giving them the freedom to use their fathers name when they chose to do so.
I was the first of two children born to this union and grew up in a family
of 6, often short of money but always with a deep sense of security and
stability.
My father, like many, became an alcoholic in the 50s and it is a testimony
to his strength of character that when he appreciated the seriousness of his
problems, that he simply quit alcohol and from then onwards I cannot
remember him drinking. After smoking for nearly 45 years, when his doctor
said to him that if he did not stop, it would kill him, he simply stopped
smoking and that also was until he died nearly 20 years later.
All his siblings went on to play an important role in their differing
spheres of influence in South Africa and abroad. In the cattle industry we
say that your best measure of a bulls effectiveness is his progeny. By this
measure the Bulls in the Cross family were virtually all champions.
I met my wife at a Church youth group and we were married in 1963 and have
remained married to each other for over 57 years. We have raised two
children and both are now mature adults, with families of their own and have
done well in their chosen spheres of life. Our grandchildren are all well
rounded young people doing well at school and all very different.
Unfortunately for the first time in history, they are a minority. For the
first time that we can identify, stable, secure families of a man and a
woman in a legal and huma n relationship, are now a minority across the
globe. This will have serious consequences.
There is first the Biblical view of the family and marriage. Those of us who
claim to be Christians must recognise that we are in a tough position. The
Bible makes it clear Mankind was created man and woman and the family is
no human idea, it has always been the very basis of society. If you believe
that the world is a created entity then you have to follow that truth all
the way, Mankind is also created and whats more, the Bible makes it clear
we are created in the image of God Himself.
This a critical issue, because it means that the right place in which to
raise children is in a stable man and women based family. Nothing else will
do the job as well. I have worked with young people f or most of my life in
the Church and I know from personal experience that fractured marriages
damage the children that are caught up in the crisis. Do not let anyone tell
you that it does not affect the children, it does, and in every way; the
children of such situations are less stable, less sure of themselves, find
it more difficult to build a stable family for themselves, have difficulty
in relating to others and they underperform in all key areas, leadership,
academics and even sport.
I simply do not understand the drive in the media and in Government, to lean
over backwards to justify aberrations that differ from these principles.
Same sex marriage is not a marriage at all if the main role of marriage is
to raise the next generation. If this is not the case, then what is the main
purpose of mankind itself? It is not to build empires and wealth, to be more
powerful or to inv ent ever more intelligent machines. Ask any man at the
end of his life about his achievements and he will tell you that the most
important thing in his life is his family.
Then there is the idea that single parents are OK, that they can have
children and raise children as if this was normal. Ask any girl who is
over 15 who the most important person in her life is and it will be her
father. When she goes through puberty, her first love affair will be with
her father, the only person she can trust not to abuse that early affair. It
is always a magic time for both of them. Ask any boy who he wants at sports
day when he scores a try at rugby; it is Dad. If you are not there it will
affect many things that happens in their lives.
If you do not accept this, then just look at history study the lives of
anyone who has really contributed to mankind in any significant way and you
will find that they were raised in a secure home where mother and father
loved each other and stayed faithful to each other. Examine the experiments
involving raising children in institutions. The novelist, Rawlings, is
spending her very considerable fortune on taking children out of
institutions and placing them with families because she understands that
this is the only way to raise a child so that they can live productive
lives.
That is why in both Russia and China as well as in all other religions of
the world, the family is the only recognised relationship in which to raise
children. They know, nothing else works as well and if our society is going
to be able to compete in this increasingly competitive world, this is not an
issue any of us can take lightly. In Africa where the f amily is under
threat from migration and some aspects of our culture, this is an issue that
every African father must take seriously.
Eddie Cross
Harare, 21st June 2020
EM -> { Trump for 2020 }
On the 49th Parallel
Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in
anarchy"
Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni
katika machafuko"
_______________________________________________
Ugandanet mailing list
Ugandanet@kym.net
http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/ugandanet
UGANDANET is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/
All Archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com/ugandanet@kym.net/
The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including
attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way.
---------------------------------------
