Who runs the family?

This week, I've had the privilege of giving almost every single boy at Casa Hogar Douglas a haircut.  Apparently, the junior high was threatening to not let them enter school with their crazy mohawks and what was now rather long hair so I had to make everyone look clean cut again.  I enjoy cutting hair.  I'm learning new things each time and the boys approve of my skills.

When I begin to cut hair in the Douglas palapa, for whatever reason it usually draws a crowd.  The boys all sit around and take turns getting their hair cut and talk for hours while I cut hair.  I tend to focus on the haircut and not get involved too much in the conversations that go on around me.  After all, I have to bend over the whole time because I don't have anything but a plastic chair, $20 walmart clippers and some mighty nice $12 scissors from some beauty shop.... so I try to just focus.

But this past week, one conversation in particular forced me to stop.

One of the teenaged boys was talking to a teenaged girl and they were arguing as to who is in charge of the household - the man or the woman?

So they asked me after a while to settle it.  They yelled, "who runs the household?  Who is in charge of the house?  The man or the woman?"

I told them that it all depends and went on to explain that God created the family unit to function so that the man or husband is the head of the household and that he would love and care for his wife and kids. They were intently listening to my every word so I continued saying that when families breakdown and are dysfunctional, often times the woman or the mom has to take charge and manage everything.  Both of these sweet children come from extremely dysfunctional and broken families.  Neither of them has had the example of a father who cared for and provided for them.  I told them it's more common in Latin America for the mom to be in charge of the house because the dad isn't around or he's drunk or does drugs - these particular kids I was talking to know that reality all too well.   We see this happening all over the world - the breakdown of the family.  God created us to form families and to care for one another and men need to learn how to be men the way God created them to be - responsible, present, and attentive.

So my conclusion was that the man is supposed to be in charge but that when it's broken - the woman runs the show.  They were very satisfied with my answer and stopped arguing.

My prayer for all these kids is that they would somehow and by some miracle get to eye-witness a different type of family structure modeled for them in their lives - families where a husband is actually around, who invests in his wife and children, who protects their best interest.  Many of them have never seen such a thing.  God send us healthy families and male role models to love on these children.

Back to school....

Several weeks have passed since Christmas break for me and the boys and several things have changed.  First, they moved my dorm.  We lugged all of our stuff and their beds, mattresses, clothes, books, toys, skateboards, furniture, etc into what used to be a brightly painted purple girls dorm.  It took a week to get it painted to a very soothing green color but now it looks pretty nice.  Coming back from break and trying to get the boys into the swing and rhythm is hard enough but changing living spaces only added to the adjustment.  We are however, doing just fine.  Back to the usual - tantrums, fights, fits, defiance, and me being forced to put up with professional wrestling on the TV.

At school, the boys have struggled - that's an understatement.  The number of bad behavior reports from the principal in the past 2 weeks alone almost exceeds the past 2 months combined.  Please pray that a miracle would occur and my boys would decide that it's a good idea to at least try to respect their teachers and principal.

In more uplifting news.... the boys just keep reading, reading, reading.  They read so much that several are now getting in trouble at school for reading instead of doing math or whatever assignment is being presented.  This is a "problem" that I can put up with.  They are currently into the Big Nate series, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, professional soccer player biographies, and SpongeBob books.

Here is my sweet boy after he finished his 6th Diary of a Wimpy Kid book.  He has now read every single book that has been translated into Spanish in the series.  A year ago, I would have told you that it'd be a miracle if he finished one of these books in 6th months but he's far, far exceeded my expectations and then some.  

Above is one of the boys pretending to be grossed out by a fake moldy cheese on the floor.  In the series of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, if someone touches the piece of rotten cheese outside by their school, then they are said to have "The Cheese Touch" which is a type of cooties.  It goes on to describe that one can pass this "Cheese Touch" to someone else if they touch anyone.  We have a replica of the one in the movies and books and the boys have now taken to play tag with it.  What I just love is that the boys can relate some kind of written word in print to their everyday lives.  They make jokes about something they learned in a book.  God bless this series.  I pray they translate more into Spanish.

Please pray for patience, clear communication, and healing for the boys as they try to process past abuse and neglect.

The boys have a new soccer season starting next week and I'm excited to return to my post as resident soccer mom of a lot of kids.