This week, we began studying the story of Yosef and his amazing, technicolor dream coat. It’s often easy to feel highly critical of our families, especially as we’re all juggling so much and want to be phenomenal parents. I want to suggest that Yosef’s family offers an interesting lens for thinking about how families function together (or don’t) that maybe also gives us room for a bit more compassion for ourselves. It’s easy to wish we had more time together as a family, but I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that none of us are giving special, obvious gifts to our children so everyone knows who the favorite child is!
The opening of this story is that Yosef’s dad, Yaakov, asks him to go and spy on his brothers and bring back reports. The sentence that immediately follows says that Yosef is Yaakov’s favorite child and that Yaakov gives him a colorful coat. Yosef’s brothers are SO upset about the coat that they cannot even say a peaceful word to him. Then Yosef has two dreams that his brothers interpret as communicating that Yosef is (or will be) superior and they will have to bow down before him.
Your bright and inquisitive children had some great questions about this opening narrative (none of them with straightforward or “correct” answers). You might want to discuss these with them while you’re walking in the city or have a quiet moment in the next few days:
- Was Yosef lying or telling the truth about his brothers when he reported back to Yaakov?
- Where are the girls in this story?!
- What if they interpreted the dream incorrectly?
- How do I feel when I see someone else being the favorite?
- How do I feel when someone else rubs in my face that they are the favorite?
- Why do you think Yosef decided to share about his dreams? What did he want to have happen?
- How do I handle it when someone else is full of themselves and it aggravates me?