At 48 years old, I’m learning new things about parenting. One of those things is that many parenting books, podcasts, and influencer posts are written by people with naturally compliant children. Hear me out. I can say this with confidence because I used to be one of those writers/speakers/podcasters who doled out a lot of parenting advice as if my children were evidence of my parenting abilities. It may seem surprising that it took so long for me to discover the truth that some parents are having vastly different experiences from the one that I had as parent to my three older children, but you see, if you’re a parent who somehow has spent 20 years raising kids who are naturally calmer, naturally more reponsive to correction, kids who pretty much any parent could apply any philosophy of parenting to and still get the same result, then you just don’t know any better.
But if you’re like me and one day God absolutely blesses your life with a kid who is naturally wildly energetic, who has hundreds of ideas every day that she tries to execute without much consideration for the possible consequences, who experiences extreme excitement about basically everything, who is not prone to stillness or quiet or doing things your way, then you learn. I’ve realized that in all those years of taking credit for my kids’ good behavior, there were other moms and grandmothers out there laughing at me. Not meanly, but in a you-don’t-even-know-what-you-don’t-know sort of way. And learning that is probably one of the best things that ever happened to me.
Pride is always a damaging thing. But pride in parenthood is not only bad for kids, it’s not founded. We don’t have room to take too much credit for our kids’ good behavior nor do we have to be crushed under the weight of our kids’ bad behavior, because children are not just little extra limbs, extensions of ourselves. They are their own people, from the very beginning. They make their own choices, and as much as we guide them, shield them, threaten them, push them to do more, be more, they are still their own, not ours. I’ve learned that as parents we make a mistake when we teach our children that they are mainly a reflection on us instead of a reflection of God, made in His image, and accountable to Him.
Pride in parenthood causes us to focus more on behavior and less on their hearts. If a parent is convinced that her child’s every move is a direct result of her genius parenting, then naturally she will take any non-compliance as a personal affront and will have no tolerance for rebellion of any kind. The problem with this setup is that children, even the naturally compliant ones, are at heart rebellious creatures. They’re sinners. So when rebellion happens, even on the smallest scale, prideful parents are the ones most likely to overreact, to look beyond the heart problem and just try to desperately manage the behavior.
The fact is that parents who have one or two of the wild ones get the remarkably freeing gift of humility in parenting. I wouldn’t have ever thought of asking God to humble me as a mother, but as usual, He knows what I need before I ask for it. Let me tell you: I have been humbled. I think what I’m discovering is that with the Holy Spirit’s guidance, this place of humility is where it starts if we want Him to turn us into the parents that we really want to be. Not the ones who see our kids as little copies of ourselves or the ones who expect militant obedience so that others will see what a good job we’re doing. Not even the ones who see our kids’ good behavior as a badge of honor. But the ones who remember their reliance on a good God. The ones who hit our knees because we need Holy Spirit inspiration about what to do next. The ones who tend to our kids’ hearts more than we dictate their behavior.
For all of you who once read and listened to me spouting parenting advice, I’m sorry that I didn’t realize that I was way too proud of myself and taking credit for things that my kids and God deserved the credit for. If I do anything worthwhile as a parent, it’s only because the Holy Spirit is working in me and despite me. I’m overwhelmingly grateful for those three naturally compliant kids who have loved me through all of the things that I didn’t know and understand about being a parent, and all the things I still don’t understand and know. And I’m so glad that he sent me one little blonde-haired, brown-eyed baby girl to teach me that I have so much more to learn.
I love hearing from you!