What's a Generational Father ?

The term is as wonderfully full-dimensional as it is puzzling.

There is a lure in the mystery presented by the familiarity of its words.

For most, there a comfort in the emotional journey back when, we are told, times were simpler.  Fathers who became our great grandfathers were honest, hard-working men with a firm, no-nonsense grip on life.  Maybe not, but that’s what we often think.  Perception, we discover, is reality.

Let us unwrap how this term applies to the book and to our lives.

Let’s start with Matt Pettit, the licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.  His life-saving expertise in turning around teen lives and the lives of their families comes from 13 years at Aspen Ranch, a residential youth ranch.  Matt is married to Cari, Gary's daughter.  They have Taylor, Colton, Brooke, Gracen and the last (they think!), Charis.

Gary Taylor, is “Pops” to Matt, “Popi” to our kids.  “Our” kids?  That’s the term and the role Matt has invited Gary in to.  And it is the crux of our story and our book. Over the years at the ranch and those since, we’ve been growing together as friends and, as well, comrades.  No, I think “partners” is better.  Well, not quite. We grew to like the term “saddle mates” better. As saddle mates , we worked the ranch, rode together, and we talked horses, life, God stuff, and our families.

Windmill Meadow Ranch was the start of sharing family life, our roots for grandparents, parents, and kids.  It took us back to earlier times in our culture.  Pioneer families, settler families living and working together.  We didn’t realize until we recently looked back and saw how much we had then.  It is sadly unusual that this wholesome setting, once common, is now so absent in the American culture.

So, we have prized our love and respect for each other.  We found ourselves enjoying the children together.  They became “our” children whether father or grandfather.  We were family.  Popi was sitting in for dad and getting in life lessons, overseeing kids’ chores, helping mom with home schooling.  That’s when we recognized our fathering was overlapping.  Gary was bringing his experience as a father and the cultural characteristics of Traditional Generation to complement Matt’s X Generation values.

From the old ranch album. Not every family can haul a 20 foot tree from the mountain.

Matt’s generation.  My generation.  Our two generations fathering the Me/Millennial Generation.  It works.  Probably would work pretty much for Matt without partnering with me since the cornerstone of his life and his parenting and husbanding were built around the centerpiece of his life, his walk  Christ.  But, when better is within reach and the stakes are, well, forever, pull everything in to the task.

The core of this book is centered around something out of sync, even innovative, today, but which salts the path of history from earliest biblical times.  It's all about the family tent.  Young fathers turn to elder fathers, even fathers-in-law, and set the pattern for generations, whether of terror or joy.

In passing on to you the full story, we would leave out the core ingredient if we did not tell you about our own mutual life of faith.  If not common, it has to be appealing to most that we were both committed deeply to a living walk with our Savior.  The syncopation at this level was set in motion at a “Boot Camp” week with John Eldredge and his Ransomed Heart Ministries team.  Two of his now many books riveted us together, Sacred Romance and Wild at Heart.  And man-o-man were we…”wild at heart” living out the adventure we were created for by a “wild” non-conforming, surprising, “outside-the-conventional-box” God.  

One last important piece.  Joy.  Retired grandfathers could stay away, improve their golf handicap, or whittle on the porch and enjoy those visits of three days wrestling and going to ball games.  But I decided I wanted more than a good golf score to leave behind.  Then the joy set in.  I found there was a new delight in a life investment of the time, the love, the passion for my grandchildren.  When they and their parents welcomed my and Nani’s presence, even demanded it, we began living a shared life and not just a visitor’s life.