On parenting

I am in a season of my life when I have no confusion about my calling . It is to be the best wife and mom that I can be. It seems simple enough, but it really is quite complicated, isn’t it? I want desperately to do the right thing with my kids and to give them what they need, but I am forever messing up. Thankfully I have a God and a family that showers me with grace.

And that makes me want to keep on trying.

I am reading a book right now about how different children have different needs and I read something that knocked me upside the head. It is about how well-meaning parents sometimes try to raise kids according to what has worked for themselves. You know, inadvertently trying to make a mini-me.

Along the same lines, we often try to discourage behaviors in our children that we don’t like in ourselves. And while we are trying to encourage and discourage we might possibly be leading these little personalities away from the traits that God has instilled in them.

Does that make sense? Like, maybe you have a very argumentative kid, and you continually try to squelch that, when God actually made this child that way because it is a trait he or she will need to fulfill his/her calling at some point. It may just need some refining.

After thinking about it I realized I may be really guilty of this. We certainly train our kids to do what we feel is right, but right for who? So now in my head there is this incredibly fine line between allowing my children to be bent in a certain God-given direction, and training them to be respectful, responsible human beings.

This is hard! And they are all different? Seriously? Did God really read my resume before He gave me this job?

I am quite certain that when God was trying to decide how to get us to deepen our relationships and prayer life with him, he thought “Hey! How about I put them in charge of a bunch of really different, complex small people that they are responsible for until adulthood?"

Hmmmm... well thought-out plan.