Allow me to sketch for you a brief (yet oh-so-vivid) moment from about eight years ago. You would have found me slumped against the wall in the hallway one afternoon. He was only a year and a half old–and the potential for catastrophe was spreading before me.
Funny thing is, I don’t even remember what my then-toddler did to cause me to groan in despair. I just remember a lot of the stories that give me a pretty good idea: like that time while I was in the bathroom, when he pulled a barstool up to the counter, snatched a packet of drink mix from the top of the toaster oven, wrenched it open, and sprinkled it around the house like fairy dust.
Or that time when he had just begun to stand on his own, and I found him standing on the dining room table, reaching for the chandelier.
Or how I’d walk into the kitchen several times a day and found he’d jimmied the child locks on the cupboard again, unloading the entirety of my appliances onto the floor (I’d long since removed the blades).
Back to that afternoon. I distinctly recall thinking, I have birthed the Tasmanian devil.
What if?
But sitting there, I also remembered my mom’s own struggles with my sister. My sister was the kind who, when Mom told her no, would look at my mother sweetly. “What will happen if I do?”
The tales of my sister’s strong will are the stuff of legend in my family. But this is what I know: My sister, now a wonderful mother whom I deeply respect, makes a stinkin’ awesome ICU nurse for all these very sick little babies. She is a fabulous advocate for her patients–the kind I’d want for my kids.
There in the hallway, the mother of said Tasmanian devil kind of felt God’s tug. It was if he was saying to me, What if I created that ingenuity and courage for him to cross some jungle to an unreached people group? What if I need him to tenaciously fight for kids in some future inner-city classroom?
There was something new in me that day. Who knows why he was made to be that way? When I described his escapades at his well-child checkup, the doctor smiled brightly. “Sounds like he might be pretty mechanical!”
I kind of smiled back. …-Ish.
The Flipside
I’m circling back around to all this now. Could very well be because I feel overwhelmed by some of my kids’ weaknesses–and as they age, the stakes feel higher. At least drink mix can be vacuumed up. But some of the mistakes kids make, especially as they age…just can’t.
So God brought back that day in the hallway to me. Can I train myself to see the flipside of their weaknesses in character and personality? Can I see the strength that would result from what drives me crazy right now…or just scares me?
When reading up on management of my son’s ADHD, I remember one author describing the task as “putting brakes on a racecar brain“. It’s valuable to me, this idea of putting reins on our kids strengths; of helping them discipline that weakness into a distinct strength.
The Fear Factor
But all of this also requires something else of me: trust in the One who made them, and in his purposes for them. Honestly, as a parent, I tend to lean toward control. Being intentional isn’t often my issue. But my belief in my ability to influence them toward good can lend itself to a pretty formulaic version of parenting: a + b = c. Do the right stuff, get a good kid.
One of the less detected strains of legalism in the church today is the false hope of “deterministic parenting.” This unspoken but deeply felt dogma assumes the parents’ faithfulness determines the spiritual health of their kids: “If I obey the Bible, discipline consistently, and push the catechism, then my kids will look good on earth and be present in heaven.” No parent would say it, but it’s really “justification by parenting.”
Such legalism smuggles in a confidence that God rewards faithful parents with obedient, converted kids and does so proportionally to what we deserve. We can wrongfully assume, “I’ve put in serious work, so I deserve a lot!”
When things start spinning out of control, I rev up the fear-mode of parenting: tighter control. Higher expectations.
But as much as I can and should do my best to manage the kids God’s placed in my care, there are questions this begs me to answer:
The actions that follow fear and those that follow trust may look remarkably similar at times. But the heart they tumble out of makes all the difference in the world.
No, God doesn’t owe me good kids. But he’s repeatedly shown himself to be the One I can trust infinitely more than myself.
Like this post? You might like
- The Scribbled Heart: Fear-parenting vs. Faith-parenting
- God’s Long Game
- The Breath We Breathe: On Fear–and Trust in the Middle of Danger
- When Parenting Means…Fear
