Book Review: “Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters”

“Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know” by Meg Meeker, M.D. is a great book for dads of girls.

Meeker is a an MD, a therapist, and a Christian.  Although at times redundant, this is a great book for any father of girls.  She shares heart-breaking, inspiring, and amazing stories from the girls and women that she has counseled.

The 10 Secrets are the subject of the chapters:

• You Are the Most Important Man in Her Life
• She Needs a Hero
• You Are Her First Love
• Teach Her Humility
• Protect Her, Defend Her (and use a shotgun if necessary)
• Pragmatism and Grit: Two of Your Greatest Assets
• Be the Man You Want Her to Marry
• Teach Her Who God Is
• Teach Her to Fight
• Keep Her Connected

A quote from her introductory chapter:

“After more than twenty years of listening to daughters–and doling out antibiotics, antidepressants, and stimulants to girls who have gone without a father’s love–I know just how important fathers are.”

“If you truly understood just how profoundly you can influence your daughter’s life, you would be terrified, overwhelmed, or both.”

“The only way you will alienate your daughter in the long term is by losing her respect, failing to lead, or failing to protect her.”  …”Fathers worry that if they push their teens or establish too many rules, they’ll just rebel.  But the greatest danger comes from fathers who surrender leadership, particularly during their children’s teenage years.  Authority is not a threat to your relationship with your daughter-it is what will bring you closer to your daughter, and what will make her respect you more.”

My thoughts:

The chapter about protecting daughters was eye-opening.  It was difficult to read.  It was frightening to read about how sex-saturated our culture is even though I already knew it.  She gives statistics through the book which are helpful. She talks about the scientific data connecting teenage sex to depression and the long-term consequences of STDs.  Many abstinence mockers fail to recognize these things.

The chapter on pragmatism and grit does a good job of pointing out strengths of fathers and mothers and focuses on some things that girls can learn better from their fathers in general.

Also the chapter on Teaching your daughter about God was great.  She also cites data for success/progress of teens in households that are spiritually minded.  Although a Christian, she backs up her thesis that girls need God/spirituality with scientific data.

The author’s experiences as counselor make this a great book.  It doesn’t quote scripture or talk about the Bible but you can see her faith and Biblical principles throughout, backed up with examples, experience, and data.

Bad Grief

Friday night we hosted a prayer meeting at our home and one of the prayers was for all the families who had lost loved ones in the past two years.  Children, parents, siblings.  Young and Old.  Some were unexpected and others after long illnesses.  Death is common to everyone.  It was a pretty big list.

One sweet widow in our congregation has an anniversary on Christmas Day.  She said she couldn’t come to our singing Sunday evening because it was too hard.

Last Wednesday would have been the birthday for our oldest member who died in the summer.

A great brother and song leader lost a brother and cousin in the same car accident and a good friend who was young and died unexpectedly last summer.  He was out of town this weekend for the funeral of a close family friend.

My parents both died the week after Christmas, ten years apart but on the same date.  It’s especially difficult for my grandfather during the holidays.

Of course, the Dobbs family and Nystrom family (a husband and father was struck by a car while riding his bicycle to work) are on my mind and in my prayers often.

Hang in there.  Let’s pray for each other.  Many are experiencing the holidays without a loved one for the first time, but it can be painful for decades.

This website has great encouragement and advice:  Difficult Season

Luke 7:11-17

“…Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out—the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, “Don’t cry.”

Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.

They were all filled with awe and praised God. “A great prophet has appeared among us,” they said. “God has come to help his people.” This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country.”

What I love about this story is that a great miracle happened and it wasn’t the result of someone begging or approaching Jesus. He approached them. He was moved with compassion for the widow and her situation. He acted.

Lincoln’s Melancholy

I finished a great book on Abraham Lincoln last week. If you are interested in history in general, and Lincoln in particular, or mental health, or just mid-19th century American culture, you will enjoy this book.

It is “Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness” by Joshua Wolf Shenk.

Some tidbits and insights that I found interesting:

• The Courting Scene: being engaged was serious, more like being “betrothed” in Bible days. Breaking an engagement would not only cause shame and create a scandal, but could also lead to legal action.
• Lincoln had two serious breakdowns/funks: one around the time Ann Rutledge died and in 1841 when his political career was floundering and he broke up with Mary Todd.
• Melancholy wasn’t necessarily considered a negative attitude during his day, just one of many personality types with advantages and disadvantages. “Even political rivals who knew the worst of (his depression) didn’t see the melancholy as a knock on Lincoln.” A newspaper article after he was elected president referred to instances when his friends worried that Lincoln might commit suicide, but the newspaper framed it as an example of someone overcoming those issues.(167)
  • Compare that to today when anyone who had similar or lesser mental health issues probably wouldn’t be elected to high offices. Shenk cites two politicians in the 1960s and 1970s whose careers were hurt by the fact they had seen therapist or been treated for a nervous breakdown.
• At one point in Lincoln’s life, he decided to no longer carry a pocket-knife, so that it would not be available for suicide.
• “Modern observers tend to see him as a man of little experience but solid character who faced a crisis and rose to great political heights of practical and moral power. But many of his contemporaries saw a decent but ill-equipped man who collapsed into incompetence in the face of overwhelming events.” (178)
• His mother died when he was young, then a sibling, then his sister died during childbirth. While president, he and Mary Todd lost a child.
• Mental Illness ran in his family. He had an uncle and cousins who spent time in a sanitarium.
  • His widow also spent the later years of her life in a sanitarium.
• Humor and poetry were two hobbies of Lincoln’s that helped him to cope.
• Reading about common treatments for depression in that day was scary. Bleeding, Mercury, Quinine, purging and fasting were among the treatments and usually made the person worse.
• Two lines of scholarship on Lincoln can be traced to his friend and fellow lawyer, William Herndon on one hand, and his widow, Mary Todd on the other. Herndon emphasized Lincoln’s undying love for Ann Rutledge as pivotal and a source of his mood. Of course, Mary Todd didn’t want any of that.

I could include a lot more. If you have questions, ask. If you are half-way interested, get a copy. Great read!

Final thought for discussion. In the pages dealing with how Lincoln’s depression didn’t hold him back politically the author makes this statement: “Somehow anything short of constant cheer has come to be perceived as a violation of the American religion.” (167) He also refers to the public and media perception of Howard Dean as angry or edgy in the last Democratic Primaries.

Do you think this statement is accurate of our society? Do you think it is a good thing? What about for Christians?

Shenk uses the term “depressive realism”. Sometimes the pessimist is right, or at least more accurate. Ignorance truly is bliss for some.

Last Time about My Depression

One more post about me then I will get back to silly and serious stuff that ain’t so personal.  I was going to wait and do this later in the week but since Ten Minute Freefall posted a fantastic post about my particular flavor of depression, I decided to go ahead and speak my peace and then shut up and move on.  

My father was a Gospel Minister who went to Crowley’s Ridge College in NE Arkansas.  He met my mom (a preacher’s kid) there, they got married and started their adventure before finishing school.  My dad preached in East MO (south of St Louis) near the river, in southern IL and lastly in western KY.  While preaching for a congregation outside of Paducah, KY, he became ill with Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS), which is degenerative muscle disorder.  It is usually a slow death (unless you get the type that starts in your lungs), in which your muscles slowly stop working until the heart or lungs give.  I was 4 and a half when he died.

The next ten years with my mother saw some good times and bad.  She had personal issues such as alcohol and depression.  She worked nights mostly, so I took care of myself a lot.  She tried to get help for her alcohol and found a lot in AA; but died in a car accident when I was 14 and a half.

I moved in with a wonderful Christian family from the congregation where my dad last preached who lived a mile up the road.  My life had some peace, structure, and a sense of normalcy from then on.  I have been blessed with two sets of parents.

In spite of all that, I have been greatly blessed.  I completed two Bachelor’s degrees, did misson work overseas, married a great woman, and have a great family.

People experience depression in different ways.  My symptoms were constant fatigue, lack of concentration, lack of motivation, some anxiety and sleep problems.  Read the link above to get a great description.  That made more sense to me than anything the doctors have said.  Stormy is a great writer.  I never really felt “sad” and definitely have not been suicidal.

Now I am realizing why I am anxious about making decision:  I had to make too many as a child while raising myself. 

I have learned that I struggle with discipline (no surprise) because of little structure or training as a child and that I am super critical of myself because my parent side developed by growing up too fast and raising myself.  That creates a nice cycle of irresponsibility followed by guilt.

I know that I have God’s Spirit to help me with self-control.

I know that I have God’s grace and mercy to deal with guilt and weaknesses.

I know that I have God’s Word and Spirit to help me in making decisions.

That is more about me than you wanted to know.  The only reason I haven’t shared this with many is that I can’t stand the sympathy/pity I often get.  The look on people’s faces when I talk about the death of my parents is too annoying.

Please do not tell me how sorry you are, or how sad it is, or whatever.  Give God some credit.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or need help.  Otherwise, I will continue my healing and growth in a less public forum.  Thanks for reading.

Thoughts for the Unbelieving (re: depression)

(Please click on the Depression Resources tab on the top of this page for more info useful for dealing with depression.)

I assume there are physiological, emotional, and spiritual causes and effects involved in depression, and each case might be a little different. I do agree that many people are over-medicated and under-counselled. I believe that it will be hard to overcome any problem without the LORD. But for the atheists out there, by that I mean depression atheists, here are some thoughts.

You know what? Maybe some are just lazy and weak-willed. Any sin is addictive. Telling someone to get up and get over it without additional help/treatment would not be acceptable for someone addicted to nicotine or heroin and is unkind. I believe that addiction of thoughts, attitudes, and emotions are even more difficult to overcome because they are internal and not as easily noticeable, and sometimes not even shunned by regular society, i.e. pride. But I also accept biological causes are part of the problem.

Why is it so hard to believe in biochemical causes for depression?

• If someone suffers a physical trauma–falling off a ladder or being in a car accident–it is common for some pain to linger on for the rest of the person’s life. Why would it be different for those who suffer emotional trauma?
• As the body ages, things start breaking down, don’t work as well, malfunction, etc. Why should it be any different for the mind? And even young people get physical diseases.
• Are the body and soul the only things affected by the Adam’s fall? Is this world fallen and broken except for our minds and emotions? Christians suffer with cancer and diabetes. Why is it wrong or a surprise that they also suffer from Mental/Emotional problems?
• Everyone accepts Alzheimers as a malfunctioning of the brain even though we can’t prove the cause. Thyroid problems can lead to symptoms similar to Mental Illness. A woman’s hormones can have a great effect on her mood. (I hope that is generally accepted and won’t get me in trouble.) Anyway, people generally accept that a malfunctioning of the biological processes can affect the mind/mood EXCEPT for depression. Why can’t we be consistent?

Those suffering from depression need sensitivity, tenderness. Some will respond to straightforward, “telling like it is”, frankness; others will be crushed by that attitude. No matter what you believe about the causes: Be kind, Be compassionate, Be careful. Don’t try to diagnose, just listen, encourage, don’t give up even when frustrated.

I don’t have anything more than anecdotal evidence. But I assume the majority of those who don’t understand and don’t “believe” in depression, are ones whose lives and families have not been affected by it. Their opinions are based on some knowledge but no experience. Maybe some have experienced the situational kind (result of death, divorce, illness, etc.) and improved, and therefore, think they can relate to someone with chronic, long-term depression.

Luke 12:48 “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” (NIV)

Does this verse teach different expectations? Is it honest exegesis to infer that “less” is expected from others? God expects more from some than others?? Is that okay? That sure would shake up our American Ideal of personal and individual freedom/power to accomplish anything and everything. We are big on equality–Affirmative Action, everyone can be president, equal opportunities. Often the most judgmental are ones who can’t sympathize and are assuming that, “If I can do it, anyone can.” I am not so sure that is a universally true statement. Of course, I am judging the judgmental.

Should we expect someone raised in poverty, dysfunction, etc. who is converted as an adult with a lot of baggage to mature in the same way-at the same rate-that one raised in a healthy Christian home would? I suggest that wisdom, love, and compassion require us to be understanding and change our expectations at least a little.

Coping with Depression by Ortberg and Tan is very helpful in discussing a variety of causes and the book is written from a Christian perspective.

Another useful book for ministers and counseling is, Healing for Damaged Emotions by David A. Seamands.

My Depression, part 2

I realize that opening up and sharing these types of things can be awkward for everyone.  It might drive some away.  At the same time it might be sensational and provoke the voyeur in all of you to “rubberneck” like you’re passing a bad wreck on I-95.

I wanted to say a thank you to Stormy Ward, a brother in Arkansas, who has been blogging about his life-long struggle with depression, which has been much more severe than mine.  He has fought the good fight much longer, and even much better than I have.  The site is called “10 Minute Freefall” based on the  expression, “I’m so low I could do a ten minute free-fall off the edge of a dime.”

Also, Dee O’Neil Andrews has blogged about her struggles with depression, where I “outed” myself.  These and others have made it easier for me to share and I have a strong need to tell people. I don’t know why.  I shared with the leaders of my congregation and to the church from the pulpit and in our bulletin.  I have emailed all my family who didn’t know to fill them in.  No one said, “you should open up to everyone.”  I just feel the need to be transparent.

I have been blessed by numerous people who have shared with me about their own struggles as a result–whether it was depression or difficult childhoods.  I have learned more about others and been taught more lessons about the sinful, fallen world we live in that continues to destroy lives and hurt people.

Sometimes, maybe it isn’t wise to share.  Sometimes, people would really rather not know what is going on.  I am sorry for forcing this on any unsuspecting blog readers.

More personal and serious stuff to come.  Thanks for listening.