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.

And the Winner Is...

Ancient Wisdom, Contemporary Power!

There are people who love a good argument.  You know them personally because they have been or are your friend, family member or perhaps it’s you.  I remember as a young man growing up in the West End of Louisville, KY how my friends would challenge one another to slap boxing matches. 

I did not join in the slap boxing matches because I never really understood why people felt compelled to slap one another.  I was a training martial artist and felt that the only person I should strike is an enemy who desires to do me grievous harm.  Even in sparring matches we were careful not to injure or embarrass our sparring partner.  We were there to learn and to improve at our art and sparring provided a safe and respectful way to achieve that end.  We became “partners” in our mutual improvement. 

Our teacher, “Uncle Sonny” always said, “In sparring I borrow your body, I will not hurt you and I will return it to you in better condition than when you loaned it to me.”  It was our mutual responsibility to respect the other person and to create a competitive, yet safe learning laboratory for our art. 

This safe respectful laboratory approach to sparring was not shared on the concrete and asphalt canvasses of the back alley slap boxing matches.  What presumably began as a friendly contest between partners/running buddies quickly descended into a wholesale fist fight.

For every slap boxing match I witnessed, I saw one very hard strike to the face followed by some version of this response, “Hey man, you are hitting too hard, so it’s like that huh?”  Following some version of those words the slaps became wilder and harder and eventually became closed fists.

It was for this reason that I decided never to slap box.  I made that decision out of wisdom rather than out of fear as some would suggest.  I chose to refrain from slap boxing matches because I never saw even one end the way they began, friendly.

Proverbs echoes this truth by saying “Starting a quarrel is like opening a floodgate, so stop before a dispute breaks out.” Proverbs 17:14 (NLT) In the same way, slap boxing was the prelude to a destructive encounter and the potential end of a friendship.  The wisdom of Proverbs is indisputable.  An earlier version of the New Living Translation interpreted a portion of this scripture with the following words, “so drop the matter before a dispute breaks out.” 

There is great wisdom in this for every type of relationship from the youngest to the oldest, from the playgrounds and school yards, to the marital bedrooms and corporate boardrooms. We are wired for either, “Fight or Flight”.  The challenge is that for those who chose flight, they will likely do it with their opponent pursuing them all the way. 

While I do not advocate violence, I do not advocate victimization as its alternative.  The better path and the greater wisdom are found in the Proverb, “Do not start a quarrel!”  The unfortunate reality is that you may not be the one who starts the quarrel, but you may end it by choosing to drop the matter.  You will always have control over how you respond to a challenge that is presented.  You never have to respond to a question, query or challenge in the manner expected by the person or group issuing it.  You have complete control over your response.  Never allow fear of what others might say about your choice to determine the choice that you make. 

In the end, keeping the floodgates closed preserves life, health and relationships.  The same chapter of the Proverbs offers this wisdom in 17:19 “Anyone who loves to quarrel loves sin; anyone who speaks boastfully invites disaster.”   You draw your own conclusions about people who choose to start and or love to quarrel.  The truth is that adults who love to quarrel are just like back alley slap boxers destined to get hit too hard and then all HELL breaks loose.  The only sure way to win is to drop the matter before the dispute breaks out.

The Wisdom of Silence!

The value and power of silence are greatly underestimated in our culture.  Our culture operates on a “squeaky wheel gets the grease” ethic.  Many people believe that the louder they proclaim their opinions the truer they become. In fact, they are only shouting so loudly that they drown out the sound of truth.  

Then there are those who love to hear themselves talk.  They relish the sound of their voice and cherish their forcefully shared views.  I know people who would rather speak than listen and are so uncomfortable with silence that they compulsively fill it with noise. 

It is the malady of post-modernity.  We have become so accustomed to auditory stimulation that we must play our televisions and radios in the background to drown out the silence.  The challenge is that we have become a people who are more distracted by silence than we are by the indiscriminate noise that pollutes our world. 

When I see a friend or an acquaintance they will occasionally ask, “What do you say?”  My patent reply is, “Not much, because it keeps me out of trouble.”  I have learned that I should speak only when it is necessary and even then only when the necessity is a demand specific to me. 

The Wisdom Literature of the Bible counsels us that, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.”  Proverbs 18:21 The words we speak produce a return and which will return to us.  It is for this reason that a wise person finds comfort in silence. 

God goes on further in Proverbs 17:27 and says, “A truly wise person uses few words; a person with understanding is even-tempered. 28 Even fools are thought wise when they keep silent; with their mouths shut, they seem intelligent”

Silence is the womb of thought, innovation and productivity.  We become wiser by our silence because we are properly positioned to receive instruction and wisdom from other sources. Proverbs 13:3 tells us, “The one who guards his mouth preserves his life; the one who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.” NASV

There are times when we must speak!  We must speak when what we have to contribute increases the quality of life in those to whom we speak.  Speak when your words encourage, instruct and correct; always weighing your words because you may have to wear them if they return to you.

Speak only life and discover the pleasure and power of silence.  When you quiet your mind, you are in the best posture to hear from Heaven.  Remember…

“When you are talking, you’re not learning because what you are saying, you already know!”