Before you can lay a foundation or start a house, you need a plan. In raising a family the same is true. The saying of “if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail” is also true. In order to make the right day-to-day decisions, we have to look at the long-term goals. Too many times we as parents do not look far enough ahead. For example, when a farmer plows a field, in order to keep the rows straight, he has to look out as far as he can see. He then fixes his eye on a goal, something he can keep in his site while he plows. Then he looks toward that goal, not wavering right or left, but plowing a straight line. If we as parents only look ahead 20 years or getting our kids through college, then we are not looking far enough ahead.

Proverbs 17:6

Children’s children are the crown of old men;…

If we are only looking at this generation, we have set our sights too close. The wealthy European families of the past made it possible for their wealth to be transferred to the next generation, and it continues on to this day. This wealth transfer did not happen by chance. The fathers of long ago devised an objective to make sure each generation did not loose their wealth.

In Jewish families, the unchanged stories and traditions of Abraham, Moses and the Feast Days are passed down from generation to generation with each generation receiving information and training so they, too, can continue to pass down the importance of those traditions. No matter what country the Jewish family lives in, they will always remain “Jewish”, and continue to pass on what that means to their children’s children.

Chinese proverb: “one generation plants the trees, another gets the shade”

Parenting today is cheapened by the attitude of getting the kids raised just to get them out of the house, or letting the teachers deal with raising them. Raising up a family should be generational. As Proverbs implies, we should focus our goals of not just our children, but their children. We have to look at our family responsibility from a larger point of view. We have to consider the impact of our lives long after we are passed on.

We live in a world where this concept is totally foreign. We live in a here and now society. We are existential in our existence. We only do or say what helps us today, not what will help our children tomorrow. Consider governments with high national debts: in reality, they are using up the resources of the next generation, only to fulfill the desires of the here and now. The debt is only a symptom of a far greater problem:  selfishness, a “me first” generation, that is only concerned with itself.

Is it right for the excesses of the parents to be placed on the backs of their children? Should the parents not leave an inheritance for their children?

So, if we are to take our parenting job seriously, we need to broaden our view of parenting. We have to look at not only our children but also the next generation. Then, as we make the small decisions of what to allow, what not to allow, we have to understand how it might effect our children’s children.

As all good parents know, our lives are slowly poured out into our children. Our knowledge, our productivity, our sweat and blood, all poured into our children. Parenting is a selfless act. Just as Jesus broke the bread and poured the wine stating that it was “His Body and His Blood”, being poured out, for not only the disciples in the room, but also given freely for whosoever will till the end of time. So we, through our selfless acts of service and love, break our bodies so we can pass onto the next generation what is important, also a portion of what our parents passed onto us. Communion is done in all Christian churches, all in different ways and times, but the single factor that is present is: The past is remembered, the present is significant, the future is celebrated. As parents we draw from the past, we live in the present, and we are always striving to enrich our children’s future. The breaking of our bread and pouring of our wine should be our lives poured out into the lives of our children and to their children.