Thoughts on Crying... and Some Other Stuff too

Babies. Crying. Put those two words together and it can make for an explosive conversation. There are many opinions out there about babies crying and how bad or good it is for them... And some misinformation, including citing of non-existent research. More recently, some research has been done to follow up older children who were "subjected" to controlled crying as young babies. In all that I have found though, neither the opinions nor the research rely on the foundation of true knowledge - the "fear of the Lord".

Interestingly, the Bible has no rules on letting babies cry... or not. It does advise us to "train up a child in the way he should go" and warns that the "heart is deceitful above all things". It also provides a model for good parenting through God's relationship with His people. After all, God is the Ultimate Parent.

So what can we learn from the Bible about letting babies cry (or not)? First and foremost, I truly believe we must learn that God's work with each of us is personal. If God has not seen fit to lay out rules for parents about letting babies cry, then why should we make rules for each other - especially based on research by people who don't even believe in God?

Certainly there is a place for loving and timely advice and encouragement from one struggling mother to another. However, we can so easily become discouraging when we don't fully understand the challenges others face.

When I look at God's relationship with me, I see a pattern. When I was young in the faith, He answered my cries quickly - to show me that He was there and cared about me. As I have gotten older in the faith, He has let me "cry" for longer in order for me to learn valuable lessons and to learn that if I do things His way life will work so much better. He doesn't care about me less, but I can't grow as a child of God if He always jumps in and fixes things as soon as I start to cry. Likewise as my children have grown, I have gradually let them experience some discomfort and distress so that they can learn to take responsibility for, and ownership of, their emotions and decisions.

When have I done this? I'm not gonna tell. Each child is truly a unique individual and God has given me the responsibility to raise the children under my care through the guidance of His spirit. At times I've stuffed up - I've told children who needed my comfort to get over themselves. At other times I've comforted babies who didn't need comfort at all - they were just testing to see how quickly they could bring Mummy running.

Interestingly, I noticed with my youngest that she needed to cry herself to sleep. Believe me, her crying sounding to me, her mother, like true distress, but at a certain age I just could not comfort her to sleep. However, if I lay her in her bed and let her cry for a few minutes, she would settle herself and sleep much better than she had when I was "interfering"! My older children were all different, and looking back I'm sure I could have done better with each of them if I hadn't been so absorbed by my own comfort, but thankfully my many mistakes (and sins) aren't a death-sentence to my relationships with them or with God... as long as I stay willing to grow and change.

The sooner we recognise that every child - and every parent-child relationship - is unique, the sooner we can get on with the business of truly uplifting and encouraging one another in those unique relationships.

One mother struggles with terrible guilt because a particular method of sleep training was essential to her mental health and ability to function. Another may feel inadequate because she couldn't muster the mental discipline to help their babies develop good sleep habits early in life. Yet another may have had a baby who literally wouldn't stop crying in the early days and weeks... and sometimes even months... She simply had to shut the door and let baby cry. It is very easy to judge one or all of these mothers from an objective distance as harsh or weak or even cruel, but when we haven't lived right in the middle of someone else's life, experiencing the very thoughts in their head, we can rarely truly understand just how hard it can be to be... someone else.

In the end, the (sometimes unspoken) rules that we impose on ourselves and others can very easily break down the essential support networks that help us get through those tough early years. I know that far too often I blurt out the words of criticism and hold back the words of encouragement or admiration. It takes real humility to accept and believe that someone else's way might truly work as well as ours... perhaps even better.

On the other hand, it takes patience and love to not carry with us every judgement and criticism that we read into the words and looks of others. Motherhood - especially early motherhood - can be such a sensitive and vulnerable time that we can easily mistake loving concern for harsh condemnation. That lovely older lady at church who says: "don't you think that will spoil him, dear?" is not necessarily speaking from some lofty height of superiority, but may be absolutely aching to ease the burden of a tired and frazzled young mother. On the other hand, single guy (who has never touched a baby in his life) who expresses concern about a baby left to cry, may truly hear something in that cry that (exhausted, emotional, hormonal) Mummy can't hear.

We will all get things wrong on our parenting journey, and sometimes God will use the most unlikely of people to tell us so... And sometimes we will have to forgive those who are speaking from a lofty height of superiority or in absolute ignorance of what it really means to be a mother.

It's a tough gig, this motherhood thing, but if we come right back down to the absolute foundation of wisdom - the fear of God - and invest ourselves in growing in Godly love, then we will have success that the world can't even begin to measure.