No Perfect Parenting, part 1

Mar28

5-02-03There are millions of articles circulating around the blogosphere about parenting. When I type in that word, Bing search gives me 124,000,000 results. Google gives me 215,000,000. That’s a lot of advice. I’m sure some of it is very good. I’m not going to read them all to find out. But I did recently read two that I found to be almost diametrically opposed, and they’re both written by moms who say they love Jesus. What? You mean Christians don’t agree about something? Go figure.

Anyway, the one mom, from a blog called “What Kids Are Reading,” wrote an article she titled “Why I Spoil My Kids—No Apologies.”  She has determined that “it’s not what you teach your children to do for themselves, but what you teach them to do for others that will make them successful (and good) human beings.” I agree, to some extent. Helping kids to see that they are not the center of the universe is important, but frankly, I don’t see how they can do for others if they haven’t learned to do it for themselves. I’m not sure that Mom and Dad doing something for me translates to my doing something for someone else.

Here are the points this author makes in order to teach her kids to do for others. See what you think: I buy them things they have not earned; I do things for them they could do for themselves; I lavish affection on them; they are the center of my universe. (On this last one, she does add the caveat: “Next to God, that is. And my husband. Actually, alongside my husband.”)

OK, then. There’s another article, from a blog called “We Are That Family,” that I think I’m a little more closely inline with. It’s titled “9 Things We Should Get Rid of to Help Our Kids.” Here’s the list of 9, in case you don’t want to jump over there and read the article yet: guilt [our own, not what our kids might feel]; overspending; birthday party goody bag (mentality); making our day-week-month, our world about our kids; the desire to make our children happy (all the time); made up awards; fixing all their problems; stuff; unrealistic expectations.

What I seemed to glean from the first post was that our kids need to feel safe (absolutely), loved (without a doubt), and that they are the most important person on earth to me (wait, what?)

This is how I see it: our kids are a gift from God. We are to treasure, raise up and release those kids to the care and protection of their heavenly Father. The world is not a friendly place in many circumstances, and they need to be ready for that, not because we make our home an unfriendly place so they learn how to deal with it early, but because they have been loved well by their family and have seen Jesus shine out of every corner. Did Jesus always give everyone what they wanted? How many sick people did He pass by without healing them? Was it because He didn’t love them? We know that’s a ridiculous question. Of course He did. Why He didn’t heal some will remain a mystery. But we can always be assured of His love. Just like our kids should always be assured of ours.

Next time, I’ll explore some of what we do to help our kids learn the lessons we have for them.

This Little Light Of Mine

Mar16

sunshine in darknessWe lose a lot of stuff around our house. My husband currently can’t find his ear buds. And for an audiophile who bought and returned approximately 13 pairs of earbuds before he found ones he likes, that’s a big deal. But they’ve gone missing for about 2 weeks now.

I can’t find my black sweater. I wear it all the time. But it disappeared about the same time the ear buds did. I probably left it somewhere, but I have no recollection of wearing it out and taking it off.

My eldest son recently lost a special coin that was given to him by the Chief Master Sergeant of his AFJROTC unit. Ended up it was in his book bag all along. That stomach dropping, heart squeezing panic while he couldn’t find it, though, were very real.

I’ve been saying for years that I want to find a bumper sticker that says, “Of all the things I’ve lost, I miss my mind the most.” That’s classic.

The other night, my daughter’s school had an evening celebration for all the families. Each class presented something that they’d been learning about in their all-school unit on missions. My daughter dressed in a traditional Kazakh outfit loaned to her by a friend of mine who had been to the country. To accessorize, she wore a little blue-beaded stretchy bracelet. As I was chatting with friends out on the patio afterward, enjoying food from different nations, Morgan came up to me in a panic, wanting to borrow my phone. Not to make a call, mind you, but to use the flashlight feature.

In a little while it was time to leave, my phone battery had died, and Morgan was still upset. Playing by the playground, somehow she had lost that bracelet when someone had attempted to grab her and gotten ahold of the bracelet instead. She was heart broken that it was lost. This little bracelet wasn’t worth anything to anyone but Morgan. That night, finding that bracelet was her sole focus. But it was very dark and a little iPhone flashlight wasn’t doing the trick. She went home without it.

The next day, on another errand at the church building where our school meets, I remembered about the bracelet. Knowing it would be a lot easier to look in the bright light of a sunny morning, I went around back and started my search. Within a few minutes, I found the lost treasure. And Morgan was grateful. In order to find Morgan’s little bracelet in the expanse of the church playground, I needed a greater light; the light of the sun.

As we learned throughout the last couple of weeks in school, spiritual darkness veils much of the world, including, increasingly, North America. Unless the Light of the World shines into that darkness, that which is lost will not be found. He’s a much brighter light than anything we can bring on our own. Will you help push back that darkness by bringing His light into the dark places?

The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned.

photo from dadsprimalscream.wordpress.com

What You Can Learn From Parenthood

Mar6

ParenthoodPretty much on a weekly basis, I cry over Parenthood. I’m not talking about the actual state of parenthood, I’m talking about the TV show “Parenthood.” I was drawn to the show because it’s about family, but I was also drawn to the show because it takes place in Berkeley, Calif., a place near and dear to my heart. I love seeing familiar places and hearing them talk about the sports teams.

There is much I don’t like about the show: I don’t like the immorality. I don’t like the fact that they take things like premarital sex, abortion and drug use so lightly. Commenters on their Facebook page will tell you that they’re handling things very delicately and all, and, as I mentioned in a previous post (Speaking My Language) I shouldn’t expect people who don’t follow Jesus to embrace the things that He embraces, but it still makes me sad.

But what I love about the show is that they make family important, they don’t make the men into idiots, the adult siblings have a really great relationship, and children are valued, talked to and actually parented, not the way I would parent, but in a loving, concerned, I’m-there-for-you manner nonetheless.

When one of the siblings goes through a separation, her adopted son calls her from his dad’s apartment where he and his sister are spending the weekend. Why? He had a bad dream. All he wants is to talk to his mom.

The teenage boy of one of the sisters gets his girlfriend pregnant. She has an abortion without his consent. Who does he talk to about it? His mom. She loves her kids and they talk to her about everything. She’s been a single mom most of their lives.

Here’s the kicker for me: The patriarchs, Zeke and Camille, are still married after nearly 50 years. She feels like she’s put aside her dreams  for years to raise her family, so now she’s wanting to branch out. She spent a month in Italy painting, without Zeke. She wants to sell the family home, the place where everyone gathers and so many memories have been made. He doesn’t want to leave. It’s his home. But after spending a month without her while she pursued her dream, when his youngest son is indignant that they would consider selling his childhood home, Zeke tells him, “Your mother and I have been together 47 years, and we’ve been through a lot, we’ve been through a lot of milestones. She goes away to Europe and all of a sudden I’m left here at the house, I’m all alone, and I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do. And I miss her. I miss her like crazy. I realize that I love her a lot more than I love this house, and if selling this house makes her happy, then that’s what I’m going to do. So that’s about it, Son, that’s the ballgame right there.”

That is the ballgame. Zeke and Camille might not know a thing about having a godly marriage—one that honors God and is a window into the spiritual realm—but Zeke got it right: Oneness and commitment to his wife supersedes everything. No house is worth promoting isolation in your marriage. No other relationship means more.

Now he just needs to get that little bit of advice into his son-in-law, Joel. Sheesh.

 

Parenthood logo from tv.com

The Promise

Mar2

23 years. 8401 days. 3 miscarried babies. 3 born babies. 2 dogs, 2 cats, numerous fish, 3 hermit crabs and a bird. 8 vehicles. 2 apartments—one in California, one in Florida. 2 houses. Too many bikes to count. 1 husband. Together, beating the odds.

I’m glad I keep a journal, because I have written recordsc0079bb1f of so much that’s gone on in those 8401 days. 34 days before that count started, though, I wrote about what I thought the promises were that I’d be making that March 2nd day 23 years ago. Here’s what I said:

“The main thing I think I’m committing to is knowing him better than anybody else, and always being there to help make him the best that he can be. I’m promising to search out his innermost thoughts, and to listen carefully. I’m promising to point out his rough spots and to help sand them down, and to polish up his bright spots so they show up even better. I’m promising to let him know that I love him even when it may seem to him that no one else does. I will be his shelter. I’m promising to provide a home for him that is a haven, one he will be loathe to leave and anxious to get back to. I’m promising to reveal myself to him as I do to no one else. To let him point out the rough spots in me that no one else is able or willing to. I’m promising to let him take care of me and thus encourage that nurturing, caring, providing, leading attitude that comes from knowing you are really and truly needed. I’m promising to be the church to his Jesus. And it’s not going to be easy. But it’s going to be worth it.”IMG_3260

Happy anniversary, Hunny. It has definitely not been easy, but it has most definitely been worth it. Here’s to many, many more.

Speaking My Language

Feb27

Jesús-te-amaLet’s say you’re taking a class in conversational Spanish. You’ve been in class for a few months and have learned many fine phrases like “Me llamo Stephanie,” and “Dondé esta el baño?” Very useful. But you know you’re not exactly at the point where you can have a conversation. You look around your classroom and see that not everyone in the room is at the same level. Some have absorbed more than others and will be further along in their ability to actually speak the language to a native Spanish speaker. But all of them can converse a bit, anyway. But you don’t go out and try to talk like a native speaker.

Now, let’s say, you’ve got several years of conversational Spanish under your belt, you feel confident in your fluency, so you go to a local coffee shop and try to order from the waitress in Spanish using your hard-earned prowess. Unless she, too, knows Spanish, the waitress is going to give you a blank stare. And then you hear everyone else in the room, and none of them are speaking Spanish. Do you then wonder what’s wrong with everyone? Why aren’t they speaking Spanish? You’re speaking Spanish, and pretty darn well, thank you very much! Why isn’t everyone speaking Spanish?

This is how I feel I react sometimes when I expect people who don’t know Jesus to act like people who do. I expect that they will get along well with each other. I expect that they will handle conflict in a godly way. I expect that they will react to adversity with grace and peace. I expect that movies and music and TV shows will be tasteful and clean.

But expecting those kinds of things from people who don’t know Jesus is like expecting those who have never taken Spanish to speak it fluently. You can’t know what you haven’t learned. You can’t act like Jesus if you don’t know who He is. This should not shock me. Even I who know Him fail to act like Him many times.

Do I like it that my son’s friends use vulgar language? No. But should I expect anything different from them if they don’t know the One who makes them clean?

Do I like it that there’s so much drama in places where humans have to work together? No. But should I be shocked that those who don’t know the Prince of Peace act in a confrontational manner?

If the people to whom I want to speak Spanish don’t know the language, maybe I should be teaching them or bringing them with me to class. Then we can have conversations together and even teach each other new words as maybe they learn faster than I do.

If the people I find myself in contact with don’t know Jesus, maybe I should be telling them about Him. If I’m not willing to do that, I certainly should stop being shocked that they act the way they do.

You can’t know what you haven’t learned. You can’t act like Someone you’ve never even met.