Parenting is A Life Sentence!

It has been said that “parenthood is a life sentence.”  The question that many parents can not seem to resolve is, “How far do I go with my children?”  Some will say, “All the way!”  I echo this response with a simple qualification, “I will go all the way with my children in the right and healthy direction.” 

You love your child!  Loving your child is not difficult because no matter how well or poorly he or she lives; you will likely have a passion for them.  They are part of us, and we can see ourselves in their faces.  They walk like us and talk like us and in many ways our children are the best of us and the worst of us. 

Do I love my child is not be the question you must answer. The real question we must answer is do I respect my children? You see love is my decision; it is an act of my will as the parent. You demonstrate your Love for your children by the life of sacrifice you live that enhances and empowers their lives.  We love our children by creating space for them to grow and develop into adults who are responsible and honest. 

The highest calling of parenthood is to rear our children with an eye toward their future and a clear awareness of their present frailty and need.  I attempted to convey this truth to my children by explaining our role as their parents to them as soon as they were old enough to make sense of the words. 

We said, “We are not your friends, we are your parents.  We love you because we choose to love you.  God gives children to serve the family, not the other way around. You will be under our direct guidance for 18 to 21 years and then you will have to you’re your own decisions and handle the consequences on your own for the next 60 years.  Our job is not to make you happy; it’s to get you ready.” 

I am confident that should more parents think forward about the quality of their children’s life as adults, then their quality of adult life would improve.  I have worked hard to avoid the temptation of fantasizing about the career my children would have, how much money they would make and so on.  I instead have been fixated upon the kind of people they would grow to become, regardless of their chosen career.  Would my children be honest, hard working, sincere, trustworthy, respectable, respectful, learners and ambitious people?

In effect, would my children become people whom I could and will “RESPECT”!  Will my kids make and continue to make healthy, loving and life-giving decisions about how they spend their time, engage relationships and grow?  You see while I control whether or not I love my children, but I have no control over whether or not I respect my children.  Respect is my response to a person who shows himself or herself respectable.

Parents have a relatively short time to prepare children for life as adults. Typically w have about 20 years to get the job done.  Consequently, they have 60 years on their own to live as respect-able adults. Parents who have poured their lives into their children only to see it squandered by bad decisions and even worse associations should feel no shame.  You love your child, and have loved them conspicuously by your investment in them through the years since their birth.

Yet there must be a point of “TFNF”.  You must say to your child, “Thus far and no farther!” The TFNF is not a termination of support; it is the transformation of support.  We must allow our children to grow beyond their need to cling to our pant-legs and skirt-tales.  We still Love our children.  In time we will grow to respect our children’s life.  While this is true, the type of help and support and help must change so that our posterity might find their strength in what Nicolas Berdyaev calls the “Greatest Mystery of Life.” 

In his book, The Destiny of Man, Berdyaev says,

“The greatest mystery of life is that satisfaction is felt not by those who take and make demands, but by those who give and make sacrifices.  In them alone the energy of life does not fail, and this is precisely what is meant my creativeness. Therefore the positive mystery of life is to found in love, in sacrificial, giving, creative love.”  

We must never fail in our love for our children, for in it is the mystery of Life.  Should your child choose to participate in the same legacy, then he or she will experience and perpetuate the Great Mystery of Life with their own children.  Ultimately, rearing children we respect is the greatest gift we can give our grand-children.

Association is the most powerful force in the universe

The Second of three Keys to building healthy successful lives for our children.

Association wields a power that is indisputable. The scripture tells us this in Psalms 1:1; Proverbs 13:20; I Corinthians 15:33 and Proverbs 23:17-21 that there are traps that are set for us by our association with wicked or foolish people. We must take care not to fall into the trap for foolishness.

Association occurs in may ways, it has been said, “I will become over the next two (2) years like the books I read and the people with whom I associate. We assume and take on the character and values of the people and media around us because it not only tells us what to think about, it also tells us what to think.

Discover the Power of Association:

1. The artwork and symbols in our homes and environment influence out values and character.
2. The television is a power communicator of contemporary values that may not be in line with our faith bases values.
3. Self-Talk is born out the fountain within each of us and shapes our lives in incredible ways.

Honoring Our Parents

Ephesians 6:1-4 offer extends wisdom to the parents as it instructs us in the following ways:.” This is the first of the Ten Commandments that ends with a promise. And this is the promise: If you honor your father and mother, you will live a long life, full of blessing.” And now a word to you fathers. Don’t make your children angry by the way you treat them. Rather bring them up with the discipline and instruction approved by the Lord.

The scripture is clear to both the child and the parent that there are requirements for each of us. We must both recognize the demands that the Bible places upon our children and us as parents. The Commandment offers us a path to follow once we understand the word honor. The word “honor” indicates the presence of a commitment that we are being called upon to fulfill. What the scripture is calling the children to do is to remain faithful to the commitment to care for your parents as they age and need your assistance, and by so doing that your children will witness you acts and learn from your example. Then when they are old they will not depart from what you have shown them and they will honor you by caring for you.

The scripture continues in Ephesians to instruct us as parents, that we ought not provoke our children to anger just because we have power over them. We must remember that they will become adults and may have the authority and responsibility of caring for us as we age. They will likely honor us in the same way that we reared them.