Horse Sense: O Father, Where Art Thou?

Wes Riddle’s Horse Sense
O Father, Where Art Thou?
Maybe you’ll recognize the oblique reference in my title to the 2000 movie, starring George Clooney (or maybe not). Anyway, like the movie “Forrest Gump” (1994) starring Tom Hanks, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” is both fun and comedic, with loads and layers of seriousness besides all the laughter. The soundtrack happens to be great too, if you like bluegrass. Then again, I’m always amazed to meet people, who say they like country music but don’t cotton to bluegrass. Country & Western I guess isn’t “backward” like hillbilly, and I reckon it ain’t nearly so poor either. Reminds me of proud folk, who’ll snub their nose at cowboy hats smack dab in the middle of Central Texas! And there are similarities the world over…. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, a few modern sophisticate Arabs living in cities try to distance themselves from their Bedouin (nomadic tribal) heritage—like someone with a degree from Rice over-accentuating the distance and separation from her Redneck past. For me, I hope I never come to apologize for jack—least of all for white trash roots in the American South or for pioneers living hard life on the American frontier. Everybody’s from somewhere, and since we didn’t create ourselves or choose our parents, God gets the credit. I’m just one bona fide work in progress, so can I have an Amen and a hallelujah?
Notwithstanding, families haven’t been exactly what they used to be either, as divorce and now single-parenting without marriage has skyrocketed. Everybody’s from somewhere, as I said, but it’s hard sometimes to tell. Your legacy is ultimately the people whose lives you touch. Most directly, that normally involves your children. What will they remember? What will you? If families separate, it means kids spend at best, half the time with each parent as they would ordinarily when a family remains intact. It means kids will spend twice the money and time to compensate later in life, if they care to. Fortunately parents compensate too, as they should. More men are doing more childrearing during marriage than they used to; and more men are seeking significant parenting roles after divorce, if the unfortunate situation should occur. Joint physical custody is awarded up to 30 percent of the time depending on the state. Instead of children living fulltime with their mothers and spending weekends with dad, families after divorce are starting to split time more equitably. It takes two to tango, as they say. It also takes two to create a mess and two to try and fix it. It takes both parents to optimally raise a child. Anyone who says it takes a village is nuts.
Speaking of which, and at the risk of mixing apples and oranges, the fact is that many abortions actually occur because women feel pressured by fathers or boyfriends! Contrary to common wisdom that it was/is always a “mother’s” choice to kill her child, her decision is very often determined by the dull, unfathomable choice of men in her life, whom she has the misfortune to care about. O Father, Where Art Thou? It will take a lot of men who choose life, in order to turn things around in this country. America needs men who choose to have children, who do not shrink or shirk from the role of provider and protector; men who stay with spouse and children, who love and hold them together. Now if I recur to an old Bedouin proverb, “To forfeit one’s family is to forfeit one’s dignity.” If true, then I can’t help but think of a family tree that heads out in both directions simultaneously, two ways there to reaffirm or to forfeit one’s dignity—in terms of our relation to the generation before us, as well as to a generation that comes after. Perhaps rejection of one’s parents and roots is related in a cosmic, metaphysical sense to the forfeiture of one’s future and indeed that of mankind. I mean, seeing as how God put us in our jeans! We walk away from more than just happenstance, if we fail to honor our father and our mother.
Now then there’s a story I heard about a training session for American employees in a large corporation. The American employees were going to be working in Saudi Arabia, so training was provided for cultural sensitivity, aided by some “cultural advisers”—actually students from Saudi Arabia attending school at local universities. A Saudi student, who was studying engineering, was about to finish his studies, but since he had received full scholarship from a Saudi company, he would be required to work a few years for the company. If he did not fulfill his obligation, he would have to pay back his scholarship money. As he explained to the American employees, he was from Jeddah in the Western Province, and the company required him to work in the Eastern Province. So he had decided to return to the home of his parents in Jeddah after finishing school, to forgo the guaranteed position, and to repay his scholarship to the Saudi company! The American corporate employees sat stunned at this decision, and asked why he had decided that way. They pointed out that he could fly back to Jeddah on weekends; moreover, there was a relatively short and finite period he’d have to work for the Saudi company. Why make a decision requiring him to pay back such a substantial sum? The young Saudi replied simply, “If I went to work in the Eastern Province, I couldn't kiss my father every day.”
If the young Saudi’s decision makes absolutely no sense to you, don’t worry. Modernity is catching up to him and his part of the world very quickly, whether or not we’re out spreading the good news of democratic values by force. It occurs to me, however, that we’ve lost much more to the effect of modernity than a blemish or two of humble origins (apologies or not).
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Wesley Allen Riddle is a retired military officer with degrees and honors from West Point and Oxford. Widely published in the academic and opinion press, he ran for U.S. Congress (TX-District 31) in the 2004 Republican Primary. Email: wes@wesriddle.com.