"I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?" - Ernest Hemmingway

I had a good day.

• I got my sermon done and slides all made. I'll spend time with it between now and Sunday, probably with a coffee cup in my hand, but aside from that buffing it's done.
• Got all the misc. Sunday prep tasks done, too. Order of service, personnel lined up, reminder emails sent out....
• I went to the metal shop and learned how to use an oxy-acetylene torch. I gave up on the throttle linkage I'd worked on, deciding the best course was to start over. I made a new template out of 12-2 Romex, took it to the shop, and got one of the monitors to show me how to use the torch so I didn't have to keep bugging someone to help me heat the rod. Got a new piece of rod, bent to my template, brought it home to check for fit - one minor tweak necessary - and am really quite proud of myself. 
• The hydraulic hood supports for the Dodge came in today's mail via USPS priority package, and they are now installed. No more wood stick to hold the hood up. 
• Removed, thoroughly cleaned, and re-installed the big plastic tray that sits behind the seats. It was pretty gross, but it's clean as a whistle now. 
• Got some inside chores done, too. 

After yesterday's comments about Andy Murray it was interesting to see the sports story this morning about his girlfriend - who outranks Andy by a factor of 10 on the looks scale - caught on camera uttering a string of pretty potent profanities at his opponent during the match. Seems they're well suited.

On days Pam works I walk her dog morning and evening. He does NOT like rain, and stops every 20 yards to shake himself off. As soon as he's completed his necessary tasks he's ready to head for home!

I'm starting to get junk mail about signing up for medicare. C'mon, guys, it's not that close. I've got nine months of youth left. Not that my butt feels like it after yesterday's workout that included way too many walking lunge steps.

This is THE most awesome thing you will see today, and probably for a week:
Bobcat load.

An article on Slate this morning reviewed a study about parenting and how it's affected by marital status vis a' vis income level. I'm not sure if the tenor of the piece - a defense of single parenting - came from the study, the article's author, or both, but the question of the relationship between income and parenting is one that I've wondered about recently. I can't draw firm conclusions because my informal observations are also spread over a significant time span, which might be as much of a factor as economic level.

Early in my ministry I pastored a church in Prunedale, a rural lower-middle-class community north of Salinas, CA. Many of us had kids who were pre- or elementary-school age, so parenting was a focus inside and outside of church. Our church in Grandville, MI was solidly middle class, a typical West Michigan demographic. Pathway (like the others) has a spread, but more of the families would rank as upper-middle class.

That four decade span obviously includes lots of cultural changes that have affected the family. Digital communication didn't exist when we were in Prunedale (at least in the home), never mind social media, cell phones of any type, or (gasp) cable TV. And the percentage of two-income households was much smaller in the 70's. So maybe the differences I've seen between parenting styles have as much to do with time as income level.

But forty years of change aside, I think there are differences in parenting depending on income level, starting with education. The affluent are much more likely to send their kids to preschool instead of daycare, and charter or private schools instead of public education. And they'll have money for extra curricular activities like music lessons, sports leagues, and dance. A peak inside the house at Christmas or a birthday will also show the difference in quantity and type of presents. Vacation trips? Their own bedroom? Nutrition? Medical, vision, and dental care?

So which end of the income spectrum is better for raising children, privilege or poverty? Way too many variables for any generalizations! And there are parenting pitfalls at each end of the socio-economic continuum. That's why Proverbs says, "Give me neither poverty nor riches...lest I be full and deny thee, and say, "Who is the Lord?" - or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain" (Prov. 30:8-9).

But if I had to choose I think I'd opt to raise kids where pennies had to be pinched and belts tightened. As it happened, that's where we were at that point in our life together, struggling to make it on a preacher's pay in small churches. Our kids did without and knew that's because dad didn't make much and mom stayed home to be mom. When they were old enough to know the difference we got some pushback when they couldn't wear the latest fashions or the "in" shoes. Vacations were tent camping in state parks with walks on the beach and free factory tours (back when factories offered free tours). And they both paid their own way through college after graduating from the public high school around the corner.
Ask them now and they'll say it was good for them to make do and do without.

Are some affluent parents doing a great job? Absolutely! And a lot of struggling parents are making a real mess of things. But I think some lessons just can't be learned apart from a level of financial struggle, including the relative unimportance of things. "You want it, you earn it" is more likely to happen, and that builds a solid work ethic.

Maybe that just means that parents higher up the economic ladder just have to be more careful and attentive to some of those issues, eh?