I had a rough day as a parent earlier this week. It wasn’t the first time and I’m sure that it won’t be the last.
My wife and I have 5 kids and we have fostered 16 other children for varying lengths of time. If I have learned anything over the 20 + years of my marriage, it is that parenting is incredibly hard.
I’m sure there are many reasons for that, but these 6 come immediately to mind. Parenting is incredibly hard, first of all:
Because Kids Are Terribly Sinful
Our culture thinks of children as innocent and impressionable; blank slates awaiting the external influences of education and culture. The Bible says something very different: “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him” (Proverbs 22:15 ESV).
The Bible says that children come into the world already leaning in the direction of sin and rebellion. A fair bit of bad stuff comes preinstalled and the job of parents is to find it and drive it out.
Therefore wise parents find themselves dealing primarily with issues of the heart. The King and Queen in Proverbs build all of their subsequent parental instruction upon this essential principle: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7 ESV).
Derek Kidner comments on this verse saying:
The beginning … is not merely a right method of thought but a right relation: a worshipping submission (fear) to the God of the covenant, who has revealed himself by name.
Parenting is not ultimately about teaching right behaviors, it is about facilitating a right relationship. Your first job as a parent is to help your child relate to the God of the covenant through faith in Jesus Christ.
You are an evangelist and God has sent you a sinner.
That’s why parenting is so incredibly hard.
It is also incredibly hard:
Because Change Is Remarkably Slow
I feel like parenting would be easier if kids were better listeners and faster learners. I explain things – I think quite brilliantly – and yet very little of what I say tends to result in positive action. I make a case – a MARVELOUS CASE – for the wisdom of starting each day with a clean room and a made bed. I tell stories about how professional athletes and military heroes learned this discipline at an early age. I wax poetic about great journeys that begin with a single step. I illustrate, amplify and exhort and then I wake up the next morning to a full on circus of sloth and stupid.
Was I not clear?
Why are we not getting this?
And the answer, of course, is that change is remarkably slow.
Parenting is the fine art of saying the same thing 10,000 times over the course of 20 years without losing your mind.
Gradually.
Slowly but surely.
Inch by inch.
Change happens.
As with our children so with the children of God. The Apostle Paul said:
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV)
The Lord is patient with our pace and progress. How much more must we be patient with the children he has entrusted to our care?
Children will grow by one degree of glory to the next. This is a call for endurance.
Thirdly, parenting is also incredibly hard:
Because I Am Breathtakingly Selfish
I find myself getting angry as a parent, more often than not, because the sinfulness of my children or the slowness of their growth and development interferes with my desire for rest, respect and recreation.
I want to nap on Sunday afternoon. My children want to poke each other in the eye. I have to referee that so that no one actually loses an eye. This makes Daddy angry, even though Daddy remembers knocking his brother unconscious with a glass peanut butter jar.
Oh the hypocrisy!
I know that my expectations are unreasonable but I really, really, really want to nap.
I also want to be well thought of. I want people to think I’m a good parent. I can’t help but feel like the behavior of my children is somehow a reflection on my character as a person. And so I become unreasonable in my expectations. I want them to do the right thing because I want to be thought of as a good person.
And I want to watch the hockey game. Is that so much to ask? It doesn’t come on until 7:30 pm; the time when all good children should be asleep in their beds. But inevitably, just before puck drop, someone comes downstairs for a glass of water, or another story, or for some other mind-numbingly nonsensical excuse or reason. And Daddy gets upset because Daddy really, really, really wants to watch his game.
Of course I know that I won’t remember the score of this game on Tuesday, and I know that when I’m 75 I will care more about that glass of water or story than the fate of my beloved team, but still, selfish Daddy wants what he wants.
And that’s why parenting is really hard.
It’s also incredibly hard:
Because the Culture Is Tragically Confused
We send our kids out into a world where people are confused about the most obvious and elemental aspects of reality. The people in our culture don’t even know which bathroom to use anymore or whether to call someone ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘ze’ or ‘it’. The culture is seemingly engaged in a self-destructive nihilistic spiral from which there will likely be no escape.
Sending your child out into that world is like tossing a sparrow into a tornado. Disorientation and destruction is now assumed.
Jesus warned the disciples about the corrosive and contagious effect of unbelief in the culture. He said: “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees” (Mark 8.15″ data-version=”esv” data-purpose=”bible-reference”>Mark 8:15 ESV).
‘Leaven’ is another word for yeast. Jesus is saying that unbelief spreads and saturates and changes. It affects everything it comes into contact with. Including, of course, our children.