CAT'S IN THE CRADLE Genesis 5:3

The Genesis:3 Project
 
Adam lived 130 years and fathered [a son] in his likeness, in his image, and he called his name Seth. (Genesis 5:3)
 
Harry Chapin wrote epic story-songs during his short career.  He was 38 when he died in a collision on the Long Island Expressway – a tragedy he probably would have turned into a dramatic melody and emotional lyrics.
 
My favorite Chapin song is “Better Place to Be” about the lonely midnight watchman at Miller Tool and Die who shares the story of an unintentional one-night stand with an equally lonely waitress.  It breaks my heart whenever I listen to it.  But his biggest commercial success was “Cat’s in the Cradle,” the lament of a workaholic father who raises his son with the promise, “I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then.”
 
I had lots of friends who believed that song was written about their own experiences growing up.  And an equal number worried that they would be perceived by their own children as the father in the song.  After all, the son in the song wants to grow up to be just like his father.  And – spoiler alert – he does.
 
Harry Chapin did not invent this dynamic, even if he put it to a melody that is catchier than the cantillation of the Biblical text.  God did it first, and then Adam, the first person created in-my-image-in-my-likeness, repeated it.  Adam had plenty of other children, but here we learn explicitly that at least when this child arrived Adam saw him as some kind of mini-me. 
 
It is not 100% clear to me which child of Adam and Eve was first-born.  Yes, we have the story of Cain and Abel that precedes Seth, but Seth seems to ensure the lineage of his parents, the function of the first-born.  I think it is the conceit of all first-time parents that the baby with whom they have been entrusted will be the best-raised child in all of history: like me, only the better image I have of myself.
 
If my own observations and, I have to admit, experience are any indicator, that conceit falls away sooner or later.  Children turn out “like me,” but not so much better, or they turn out a “better image,” but not quite so much like me.  And that’s as it should be.  The father (or mother) who believes he can improve on himself ought to improve himself.  And if he can’t, then he should not sentence his child to make the same mistakes.
 
My hope is that I taught my father as well as my first-born child taught me.  It took me a lot of years to understand that if I was going to help her fulfill her potential, I could not create the overlay of my expectations.  Fortunately, she was headstrong enough to pursue what she really wanted…and respectful enough to uphold the fifth commandment.  Her siblings had it easier, even if I discovered new mistakes to make with them just so they wouldn’t feel left out.
 
But there are some few people who are raised to be “just like him,” and they set out to repeat that challenge.  They have a sense of their role as creator, mandated to ensure children, or a community, or a society in their likeness, in their image.  They become tyrants, practiced at seduction or coercion (or both) and insistent that the world around them in radiating concentric circles will conform to their ideas.  No matter how good they seem to be at it in the beginning, they wind up in a heap at the end.
 
Seth lived a good long life – more than 900 years – and fathered sons and daughters.  That’s all we know about him.  In fact, that’s all we know about the generations that followed him.  Seth grew up to be just like Adam, and Seth’s sons and their sons and their sons grew up to be just like their fathers before them – as far as we know.  It was not so many generations until the world was enough of a mess that humanity was washed away in a heap.
 
We learn here and at other times in the Biblical prehistory of human society that we progress best when we discover the unique contributions in an infinitely diverse human family, not so much when we reward sameness and imitation.  Yes, we need rules or, like Cain and Abel, it can end equally badly. 
 
Harry Chapin loved irony, and the irony in “Cat’s in the Cradle” is that the father’s cheerful neglect becomes the son’s model of his own behavior.  I got lucky that my kids seemed to tease out my better values from my own cheerful neglect.  But it doesn’t always happen.
 
In the years ahead, we will see if our new American leadership will learn that in-my-image-in-my-likeness is momentarily gratifying, but in the end a huge mistake. And if so, let’s hope it gets learned before the last verse.
CAT’S IN THE CRADLE
 
Adam lived 130 years and fathered [a son] in his likeness, in his image, and he called his name Seth. (Genesis 5:3)
 
Harry Chapin wrote epic story-songs during his short career.  He was 38 when he died in a collision on the Long Island Expressway – a tragedy he probably would have turned into a dramatic melody and emotional lyrics.
 
My favorite Chapin song is “Better Place to Be” about the lonely midnight watchman at Miller Tool and Die who shares the story of an unintentional one-night stand with an equally lonely waitress.  It breaks my heart whenever I listen to it.  But his biggest commercial success was “Cat’s in the Cradle,” the lament of a workaholic father who raises his son with the promise, “I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then.”
 
I had lots of friends who believed that song was written about their own experiences growing up.  And an equal number worried that they would be perceived by their own children as the father in the song.  After all, the son in the song wants to grow up to be just like his father.  And – spoiler alert – he does.
 
Harry Chapin did not invent this dynamic, even if he put it to a melody that is catchier than the cantillation of the Biblical text.  God did it first, and then Adam, the first person created in-my-image-in-my-likeness, repeated it.  Adam had plenty of other children, but here we learn explicitly that at least when this child arrived Adam saw him as some kind of mini-me. 
 
It is not 100% clear to me which child of Adam and Eve was first-born.  Yes, we have the story of Cain and Abel that precedes Seth, but Seth seems to ensure the lineage of his parents, the function of the first-born.  I think it is the conceit of all first-time parents that the baby with whom they have been entrusted will be the best-raised child in all of history: like me, only the better image I have of myself.
 
If my own observations and, I have to admit, experience are any indicator, that conceit falls away sooner or later.  Children turn out “like me,” but not so much better, or they turn out a “better image,” but not quite so much like me.  And that’s as it should be.  The father (or mother) who believes he can improve on himself ought to improve himself.  And if he can’t, then he should not sentence his child to make the same mistakes.
 
My hope is that I taught my father as well as my first-born child taught me.  It took me a lot of years to understand that if I was going to help her fulfill her potential, I could not create the overlay of my expectations.  Fortunately, she was headstrong enough to pursue what she really wanted…and respectful enough to uphold the fifth commandment.  Her siblings had it easier, even if I discovered new mistakes to make with them just so they wouldn’t feel left out.
 
But there are some few people who are raised to be “just like him,” and they set out to repeat that challenge.  They have a sense of their role as creator, mandated to ensure children, or a community, or a society in their likeness, in their image.  They become tyrants, practiced at seduction or coercion (or both) and insistent that the world around them in radiating concentric circles will conform to their ideas.  No matter how good they seem to be at it in the beginning, they wind up in a heap at the end.
 
Seth lived a good long life – more than 900 years – and fathered sons and daughters.  That’s all we know about him.  In fact, that’s all we know about the generations that followed him.  Seth grew up to be just like Adam, and Seth’s sons and their sons and their sons grew up to be just like their fathers before them – as far as we know.  It was not so many generations until the world was enough of a mess that humanity was washed away in a heap.
 
We learn here and at other times in the Biblical prehistory of human society that we progress best when we discover the unique contributions in an infinitely diverse human family, not so much when we reward sameness and imitation.  Yes, we need rules or, like Cain and Abel, it can end equally badly. 
 
Harry Chapin loved irony, and the irony in “Cat’s in the Cradle” is that the father’s cheerful neglect becomes the son’s model of his own behavior.  I got lucky that my kids seemed to tease out my better values from my own cheerful neglect.  But it doesn’t always happen.
 
In the years ahead, we will see if our new American leadership will learn that in-my-image-in-my-likeness is momentarily gratifying, but in the end a huge mistake. And if so, let’s hope it gets learned before the last verse.

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