Those who insist that a firm hand, a clear boss, a head of family, a patriarch creates order and harmony are right to a certain degree. It is easier with predictable cycles of reward and punishment to control people, but you inhibit their full humanity by forcing trained responses to your will.
True harmony is with respecting one another, struggling through the issues of want and need, scarcity and abundance, in resources, in enjoyment, in whatever manner the partnership manifests.
Children to are part of the implicit divine contract, beings given unto the world for us to cherish, first of all, and guide along their way, so they may know the world with love, not fear.
This does not entail a fairy tale land of no accountability, the fractured fiction of Margaret Mead's islanders, but accountability of being to being, able to recognize and reckon with the self worth and dignity of every other being without robbing that self of the ability to develop into a fuller blossoming of God's love.
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