How to Mess Up Your Child

iWe
iWe
3214
 

Just tell them that they are not enough for you. Better yet: put it in their name, so they can never forget just how inadequate they really are. After all, if you are not good enough for your mother, then how can you be good enough for anyone else?

And she [Rachel] called his name Joseph, saying: ‘May the LORD add to me another son.’ (Gen. 30:24)

Is it any wonder that Joseph grows up as an insecure child?

(Credit for this insight belongs to #3 son.)

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  1. Amy Schley Coolidge
    Amy Schley
    @AmySchley
    9:02 PM EST ⋅ Nov 22, 2018

    iWe (View Comment):

    Amy Schley (View Comment):

    James Gawron (View Comment):
    Will they abandon Benjamin like they abandoned Joseph?

    Of course, Jacob’s comment didn’t exactly help the family peace. “But what if they keep Benjamin?” Nice to know how little his other ten sons mean to him. I’m sure they loved hearing the implied message that “Eh, if the Egyptians kept any of you as hostage, it wouldn’t break my heart.”

    There is a much better explanation: Joseph does not know if he (like Ishmael, Abraham’s other sons by a different mother, and Esau) was really out of the family. Benjamin was the link, because they shared a mother.

    So initially he reckoned he was “out” – which is why he never “phoned home.” When his brothers turn up, he reckons his mother disqualified him, so offers to take Benjamin off their hands. When they go to the wall to keep Benjamin, Joseph realizes he has it backward – and that he is meant to be part of the family after all.

    [credit: Menachem Leibtag]

    I understand Joseph’s motivation in requesting Benjamin.  My problem is with how Jacob reacts to Joseph’s request back home: “If harm should befall him on the journey you are taking, then you will bring my gray hair down to Sheol in sorrow.” The implication is that if harm befell any of the other sons, it wouldn’t kill Jacob. It’s a nice bit of emphasis that all of Jacob’s non-Rachel sons just don’t matter as much to him and that he doesn’t love them as much.  Which further emphasizes my feeling that Leah is probably the most miserable person in all of Genesis; after all, look at the names of her children: 

    • “It is because the LORD has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now.”
    • “Because the LORD heard that I am not loved, he gave me this one too.”
    • “Now at last my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.”
    • “This time I will praise the LORD.”
    •  “God has rewarded me for giving my servant to my husband.”
    • “God has presented me with a precious gift. This time my husband will treat me with honor, because I have borne him six sons.”

    But of course, he doesn’t. She’s just a brood-mare to ride, not a partner to love.

    • #31
  2. iWe Coolidge
    iWe
    @iWe
    Post author
    9:12 PM EST ⋅ Nov 22, 2018

    You are not reading it right. Jacob loves Leah. He just loves unequally. 

    • #32
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