Your kids shouldn't be your first priority

In my podcast today, I talk about why families are (or should be) hierarchies. Every person is not as important as the next, and every relationship is not as crucial to the overall health and stability of the family. The most important relationship in any family is the one the parents have with God. The next most important is the one the parents have with each other, then the one they have with their kids, then, at the bottom, the one the kids have with each other. A family can't function properly unless all of these relationships are put in their proper context and prioritized correctly.

The problem is that modern parents have thrown the whole thing out of whack. They put their relationship with their kids at the top, then each other, then maybe God ranks at the bottom, or maybe He doesn't rank at all. Many wives care most about fulfilling the needs and desires of their kids over their husbands, and many husbands take the same approach. And, although the kids are fawned and fussed over and treated like royalty in the house, they still end up feeling insecure and unstable, because they can tell that their parents don't love each other that much. That's how you end up with a generation of insecure, yet narcissistic kids who need to be the center of attention at all times because that's all they've ever known.

I think the better approach is for husband and wife to put each other first, always. And they ought to make sure the kids know it, too. A child should know that he is not the most important person in the family, that he will never be able to come between his parents or set them against each other, because they will always remain untied. This may be difficult for a kid to deal with at first, but eventually he'll learn to appreciate it, and he'll see that by loving each other, his parents also love him.

To see more from Matt Walsh, visit his channel on TheBlaze.