Oh Brother, Here We Go...Ed's Talking About Parenting

Well…I’ve decided to deviate just slightly from the topics that I have been writing about because I’m currently reading in Numbers and to be quite frank, I got nothin’.

Ok so here’s what I need to tell you. You probably don’t want to hear it because you haven’t yet accepted the truth. Someday you will, but that day hasn’t come yet. This blog however is all about getting at the truth so here we go. This is a profound truth of the universe that you just simply are going to have to accept. Here it is…

Your child is almost certainly not a genius.

I know, I know, I’m an ignorant fool. You hate me and how dare I! Now that we’ve dispensed with the indignation, just take a minute and let that sink in. Dwell on it. Accept it. Make it part of you.

While we’re at it, here are a few more truths you are going to need to accept.

1. Your child is not a genius
2. If your child is smart, its not because of anything you did
3. If your child is dumb, it probably is at least partially your fault but don’t worry, whey will learn enough to survive without you.
4. Your child does not deserve to be three grades ahead of the other children their age, not two, and not even one.
5. If your child is well behaved, it’s not because you are a wonderful parent. And you should know that most gifted children are treated for behavioral issues so there’s more proof that your kid isn’t smart.
6. If your child is a brat, it probably is at least partially your fault and they will probably be a brat till they die.

Why am I telling you all of these shocking things? Because I am tired of all of the prideful people I come in contact with bragging about their average children as though they were the next Einstein. Only two percent of children are “gifted”, so what this means is that ALL of your children CANNOT be gifted.

It’s sometimes annoying for me to talk with people about their kids and while I try to do that as little as possible because quite frankly I just don’t care that much; I try to act interested for your sake. So when you get all braggadocios and ridiculous I just tune you out. When you wax philosophical to me about your parenting technique and you haven’t yet had a challenging child or haven’t had any child I laugh and remember when I felt the same way before I had kids.

God has taught me a very important lesson about my kids. My kids were given to me for a reason and that reason is not that God just thinks I’m going to be a really great parent. God created my kids with their own personalities. They were born with their own penchant for sin and mayhem and troublemaking. I didn’t instill in them most of the good things they have at their disposal and I’m not responsible for most of the rotten things they tend to do either. They just are who they are. So why were they given to me? Were they given to me so that I can make them like God, or make them like me, or simply make them behave? No…I believe they were given to me because I need them to refine me, to make me softer, to make me more loving, more gracious, more merciful, to make ME more like God.

I have noticed a disturbing trend among some Christians. This trend is the belief that as a parent it is my job to drive out all of these negative things from my children and to turn them into perfect little God fearing Christians. I think that is a very haughty sinful attitude. I lived under that oppression for a while and unfortunately my children did too to my discredit. Sure it is my job to present them with the truths of the gospel and to show them Godly love and discipline so they don’t reject the truth out of spite because of my hypocrisy. It’s also my job to discipline them, to keep them alive, and to teach them to act correctly in society so that God’s name isn’t disgraced by their behavior. But the problem with the heresy that teaches that I need to drive every little problem out of them with a switch from the oak tree out back is that it leaves no room for God in the equation. I read a book recently that said that if I don’t beat my children with a switch till they submit to me totally that I have failed them as a parent, I don’t love them, and that they will likely grow up to be ax murderers. I have talked to well intentioned Christians who espoused the same attitude.

Another problem with the whip first ask questions later crowd is that it causes people to live with incredible guilt. Because despite their best efforts and all the whipping, their kids still don’t behave. Then they get told by fools who think they know that they just aren’t consistent, or they aren’t doing it hard enough, or often enough. Let’s get serious for a second; kids have died at the hands of loving parents because of this garbage. Some kids don’t submit, some kids rebel all the more.

This is the part where many begin quoting bible verses. Folly is bound up in the hart of a child…etc. Isn’t it interesting that there are so few verses in the bible about parenting. Isn’t it interesting that there are next to no verses about parenting in the New Testament? Isn’t it interesting that Jesus had almost NOTHING to say about child rearing? Oh wait. He did say we should approach God like a child. We tell our kids that we have to hit them because God wants them to act like adults! People, there’s something very wrong here.

Is it possible that some folks have elevated the act of childrearing to almost the level of idolatry? Is it possible that people are overly hard on their kids because they are too proud to admit that they are embarrassed when their kids don’t act just right? If Mary and Joseph followed some of this so called wisdom they should have beaten Jesus within an inch of his life when he stayed behind in the temple instead of coming home with them. The bible says that they were greatly distressed. It’s notable that the scripture doesn’t mention the whipping he should have received. It’s also notable that the New Testament talks more about parental restraint and not discouraging your children than it does about punishing children (which it is almost completely silent about).

So here’s my question. Is it ALL my responsibility? I’ll answer for you, of course it isn’t. God has some responsibility here too. The bible teaches that it is God who draws the unbeliever to Him. It is God who grabs the heart of a person and snatches them from obscurity into a new life with Him. It’s God’s presence in the life of a believer that causes them to want to change. The bible says we are incapable of changing without God.

We CANNOT drive our children to God and we CANNOT make them Godly.

And think about this…what if God held you immediately and severely accountable for every sin? No grace, no patience, no mercy. No, this is not the God of the bible. The God of the bible is a just God certainly, but he is endless in love and grace, and mercy. He waited patiently for me to get my act together and now he has given me little people to show me just what He has had to put up with all these years. I owe it to them to show them just a little picture of His justice AND grace. But in the end they belong to God and He will call them if and when He chooses and one thing is for sure…just like my salvation had nothing to do with me, neither will theirs.