Parenting

Unfortunately, for those of us who have become parents, when children are born they don't come with a manual.  Even if we got a manual in Spanish or French we could at least get it translated.  But alas, they come to us as a one of a kind that no manual has been written for.

One of the books I read...long after becoming a parent...said that if you over-parent children you raise foolish adults.  That seems contrary to the great wisdom so many of us have when we are in the midst of parenting.  We believe the closer we watch over our kids and the tighter we hold on to them the better they will turn out.  Quite the opposite.

What are the Godly goals for raising a child?  The first one that pops into most heads of those familiar with the Bible is "Honor your father and mother."  Somehow in our broken humanity we as parents interpret that to mean, "Do what I say--forever--and life will go well with you."

The verse that informs us the most is "Train up a child in the way they should go and when they are old they won't depart from it."  Seems simple.  We just raise them the way we think they should be raised and they'll stick with it for life.  But here is where our own parenting we received sometimes gets in the way.

I believe that our goal as parents is to discover the child God created before the foundation of the world (see Eph 1), identify their gifts and nurture them toward fulfilling the calling God has on their life.  That takes a little more effort than just using the same pattern we had used on us to get the kid through life.  Unfortunately, we carry the wounds we received as children into our parenting and consciously or unconsciously seek to imprint them on our offspring.

I also believe that the most important goal of raising children is the one we often overlook--that is to raise them to become independent adults with hearts turned toward God.  If we try to keep them dependent on us too long we raise foolish adults.  They need to learn to think on their own and make mistakes as they learn what is God's will for their lives.  I have to admit, the things I have learned that have stuck with me are the ones I learned by making mistakes.  What changes our behavior is living with the consequences of our poor decisions.

Back to honoring our mother and father.  What is more honoring than becoming an independent adult who is living life in obedience to God?  It is not honoring to us as parents for our children to be dependent on us.  It is not honoring to us to be inmeshed with our children.  They need to be living lives accountable to God and not confused by our sick need to keep them accountable to us.  We aren't their God.  We are their parents to whom has been entrusted the job of raising healthy, independent adults.  Those adults can then raise another generation of healthy, independent adults who can impact our world.

Gee, I wish I had known this when I was parenting!

Look around at the adults you know.  How many of them are functioning as adults and not kids with wounds in adult bodies?  In most cases those wounds came from the parents who were entrusted to model what our Father acts like toward us.  Does he smother us?  Does he abuse us?  Does he have anything but our very best interests in mind?  So many have turned away from the Father because of the model of parenting they have experienced.  That doesn't leave much honor for us.

I'd love to be able to do my parenting over again.  But unfortunately, we only get one ticket for that ride.  But by God's grace my children have the opportunity to turn to their Father who loves them more than I did, receive what they need from him and in turn give it to their children.  They have the opportunity to learn from my mistakes, go back to the pattern God gives us and raise healthy, independent adults who honor God and them.

It's never too late.