Rise Up In Submission!

Submission is usually viewed as a dirty word these days. It smacks of out-of-date values and patriarchal oppression. What could possibly be good about submission?

This isn't entirely about submission, but the negative emotions that tend to be attached to 'submission' are representative of a troubling trend. See, I've noticed something about my generation of women. It may be true of the men too, but since I have the most to do with other mothers, that's who I'd like to write about. We don't like to take advice. More specifically, we don't like to take advice from those who out-of-date values would urge us to call our 'elders and betters'.

We don't mind our friends reassuring us that we're doing fine, but when someone older suggests that there might be a better way to parent, we muse that they can't possibly remember what it's like; or we shrug off their comments as old-fashioned, misguided or downright wrong. What makes me think that my six years of parenting three children is superior to twenty years raising five or six? Certainly it's not a good idea to listen to everyone with an opinion - we'd spend our whole lives going round in circles. However, I think we need to carefully examine what makes us reject what our 'elders and betters' have to say.

Having come out of a medical research background, the latest research is not a good enough reason to close our minds to different ideas. Researchers are still human, they have unavoidable biases - ALL of them - and at any given time most researchers are really only looking at one variable. At one time, the latest research showed that soft drinks caused polio. Later on, another scientist found that polio and soft drink consumption were two unrelated effects of the same cause - warm weather. So how do we choose who to listen to?

The book of Proverbs tells us that there is a way that seems right to a man, but the end of it is death. I fear we are all too ready to follow the trends of what seems right today, instead of going to the source of Truth to find out what is right today, tomorrow, and ever more. Instead of simply embracing parenting styles that seem right, we need to ask ourselves honestly if they are in keeping with Biblical principles. And before we object to the parenting styles of the past that don't seem right we need to be ready to consider that they may also be in keeping with Biblical principles.

Finally, I think we young mothers need to be ready to accept that we don't already have all the answers and be willing to listen to someone older and wiser than ourselves on the off chance that they might actually teach us something. Submission isn't voluntary slavery, it's the freedom to let others have the right answers once in a while. There are many other contexts for submission that I'm not even going to touch right now, but I think it's worth starting a revolution. Let's rise up against the trend of knowing it all, and submit ourselves to the possibility of being wrong once in a while. Let's rise up in submission.