Sunday, May 07, 2006
PARENTING - 1
My baby turned 20 yesterday. I have no more teenagers at home! Parenting milestones are cause for prayers of thanksgiving. The basics begin with every parent's prayer to live at least long enough to get the kids raised and out on their own. We wrestle with the thought of "who would we want to raise our kids if we both die?" And in our case, we changed our minds several times over the years. Thank you, Lord, that we lived to get our kids through the teen years.
I remember at one point joking, only partially, that the goal of raising three girls was to get them through the teen years drug-free and not pregnant. What a sad commentary on the state of our society and families today that the bar is often set so low - and even that can be hard to achieve.
As I look around the Christian community, I see two extremes:
1. Parents who are literally scared to death and exert tight control on the kids, perhaps unwittingly communicating a fear of the world around them. The danger, of course, is producing kids who either lack confidence to engage life and handle the tough challenges, or who , on the other hand, rebel against the restraints, break relationship with the parents and throw off God in the process.
2. Parents who are too focused on work, money and achievements (even for their kids) that they neglect a genuine rooting in the faith. Those kids often drift away from God in the late teens or early 20's.
There is a middle ground that I want to explore and has proved healthy in our family experience.
I remember at one point joking, only partially, that the goal of raising three girls was to get them through the teen years drug-free and not pregnant. What a sad commentary on the state of our society and families today that the bar is often set so low - and even that can be hard to achieve.
As I look around the Christian community, I see two extremes:
1. Parents who are literally scared to death and exert tight control on the kids, perhaps unwittingly communicating a fear of the world around them. The danger, of course, is producing kids who either lack confidence to engage life and handle the tough challenges, or who , on the other hand, rebel against the restraints, break relationship with the parents and throw off God in the process.
2. Parents who are too focused on work, money and achievements (even for their kids) that they neglect a genuine rooting in the faith. Those kids often drift away from God in the late teens or early 20's.
There is a middle ground that I want to explore and has proved healthy in our family experience.
