On Raising Children - Part II - The Hard Part

Being a parent is much like trying to stay afloat in a boiling cauldron. Keeping your head above water won’t necessarily save you. Children, it seems, have a mind of their own. They often refuse to listen to wise counsel. They can insist on making independent decisions that are ill-informed and can totally depart from what they’ve been taught. This, they feel, is what it means to be grown up. This is what it is like to be free from the yoke of parental control. This is the thanks their well-intentioned parents get for twenty years of love, support and involvement. Well, we all want our kids to become independent, except for a few freaky co-dependent sorts who would rather strangle their kids with apron strings, yet a parent’s greatest fear is to have their kids depart from the path they’ve tried to set them on. Having to sit back and watch your kids unnecessarily make big mistakes with serious consequences creates gray hair, bags under the eyes, stomach ulcers, and drives people to early graves. This “Children of the Corn” mentality carries its own curse. Children who despise the rule of their parents and have no use for their advice eventually grow up and have kids of their own who give them the same thing--in spades. What goes around, comes around. The chickens always come home to roost. We reap what we sow, and in this case, sowing the wind, you reap the whirlwind.

Now from the child’s perspective: Dealing with parents can, at the least, be frustrating. At worst, you feel betrayed, abandoned, detached, and adrift. Obviously, the two parties involved--parent and child--are at odds with each other. They are differently motivated and work toward different ends. Parents ideally want to help their kids avoid making stupid mistakes and to help them avoid embarrassing themselves and their families with preventable indiscretions. They want their kids to embark on life’s journey well-equipped for every contingency. Kids want to have fun and make their own decisions. The conflict often arises because children, experience-poor and unprepared to make good decisions on a wealth of matters, insist on doing so anyway. They fancy themselves more mature than they are. Parents can be guilty of fancying their children as less mature than they are. Children think their parents have little to offer someone young and growing into adulthood. Parents think their children, rather than being free to roam the globe, should be locked up in the basement. This is, of course, always for their own good.

Study all of these frustrations and many more and you will come up with several common elements. Here are a few:

1. Children discount the experience and knowledge of their parents. - In the Bible, such knowledge is called wisdom, and wisdom is defined as “knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action.” In other words, knowing the best course of action and having the sense and initiative to make that choice. Experience is still the best teacher, and parents have been in that classroom a whole lot longer than you, kiddo. In many regards, children have yet to enter certain classrooms at all. Children: listen carefully to what your parents are saying. The chances are pretty good that their experience may trump your youthful exuberance.


2. Parents not listening to children or not explaining their decisions to them. - Even if a child is wrong in their motivations, the parent has the obligation to listen if for no other reason than be equipped to explain why one path is right and the other wrong or why one choice is better than another. “Because I said so” just fuels a contest of the wills. Explaining your decision to your child doesn’t mean they will readily accept your judgment either. However received, a parent should provide their counsel and present their wisdom in a non-threatening way, explaining as best they can the reasoning that goes into their decision.


3. Parents and their children position themselves as adversaries, not compatriots, in the growing-up minefield. - Working as a team with a common goal is essential. This means that both parents and children must be prepared for some give-and-take in the process. Kids: remember this--your parents are not the enemy. Parents: remember this--your kids aren’t the demonic little killjoy they may seem to be at times. Love and mutual respect softens conflict.


4. Unrealistic expectations of equality. - Children should be prepared to give up on having everything they way they want it. At this stage of a family’s development, egalitarianism will not work. There has to be a hierarchy of leadership, a place for the buck to stop, and someone who can have the last word. Unfortunately for kids, this role is best occupied by parents. When common ground and agreement cannot be established, the final decision should fall to the parents. A child’s deference to a parent’s judgment will prove to be a wise choice. Time almost always shows that the parents’ decisions for the children are better than the children’s decisions for themselves.


5. You cannot be parent and friend to your children at the same time. - The role of parent and friend are very often in opposition to one another. Give up on the notion of being a friend to your children until they are adults. Children: don’t expect your parents to treat you like your friends do. Don’t expect them to blindly embrace every idea you have. Don’t expect them to support every decision you make. Their job is to protect you from your own stupidity. Let them do this. You’ll appreciate it later. Guaranteed.

The challenges of parenting have changed over time. The remedies and tools parents use in their work have changed, too; some would say they have “evolved”. In the Mosaic Law, rebellion in children was a capital crime. Deuteronomy 21 says:

18 If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." 21 Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.

Things have softened up just a bit since then. Yet rather than view this as overly harsh and barbaric, try and see the value in having such a strict view of childhood rebellion. While I don’t advocate the reinstatement of laws requiring the stoning of the rebellious child,  I believe this law did bring benefits into the early Israeli society. Maintaining the order between parents and children, even if by rule of law, is better than anarchy. It is how militaries have kept order for thousands of years. It is what has kept organizations functioning properly for millenia. Reinforced order is what it is. Since the Mosaic law of that time was instituted and written by God Himself, we must also conclude that reinforced order within the family unit is not only beneficial, but is mandated. Today, we cannot expect to have that kind of attitude supported by government, but we still can as a family unit, short of the stoning part that is. When children willingly defer to a parent’s judgment, they are doing their part to create stability. They are also performing an act of self-preservation. Ephesians 6:1-3 (quoting Deuteronomy 5:16) tells children that the fruit of honoring their parents is that “it may go well with you and you may have long life on the earth.” It is therefore safe to assume that the inverse of these would be the fruit of rebellion: that it will not go well for you and you will not have long life on the earth.

Thus far, I’ve tried, albeit rather poorly, to point out that: a) It is easy to have children; and b) It is hard to raise children well. In the next episode, I will cover exactly what you should teach them.