What We Should

"With great power comes great responsibility."  Remember that saying from Spiderman? (Now there's a movie I plan never to watch again.)  Well.  It's true, isn't it?  And true of being a parent.  As parents we have enormous power, and most of us take the responsibilty that goes with it very seriously.

We wonder whether we should make our children practise their music, or let them decide.  We ask ourselves whether swimming lessons or ball sports are more important.  We agonise over the perfect balance between innocence and being aware of potential dangers in the world around them.  We argue back and forth among ourselves over food, screen time, independence, safety, attachment, breastfeeding - in fact, every imaginable facet of parenting becomes subject to a squillion conflicting "rules" dictated to befuddled parents by a myriad of "experts".

Once again, though, we are asking ourselves the Wrong Questions.  There is no one authoratitative resource which defines the ideal diet, the perfect balance of extracurricular activities and the exact formula for screen time.  In its own unique way, though, the Bible tells us exactly what we should do.  The big, central question for every parent, is exactly the same as the big, central question for every human being: "what should I become?" (And, of course, there are a whole bunch of other questions that go along with that, but - interestingly - "should we have pizza for dinner tonight?" is not one of them.)

Being a good parent is all about being a good person.  And being a good person is comprehensively defined by the Bible.  It starts with realising you can't actually be a good person without God working in your life, front and centre.  And then there are a whole pile of principles that apply to every human relationship - including the parent-child relationship.  God's definition of Love in 1 Corinthians 13 is a great place to start.

Let me digress a little.  We have a bad habit of defining parental success by the outcomes in the lives of our children.  Ever heard a parent say something like: "we tried everything to make Johnny stop hitting his sister, but nothing worked"?  The implication is that it's our job to make our children do what is right... and that somehow that will turn them into good people.  To a limited extent we can control and change our children's behaviour when they're young, but shouldn't our goal be to teach them what is right and what is wrong (including administering painful consequences, to demonstrate clearly that sin causes pain) and hope like mad that they will choose to do what is right?  That sounds terrifying, but sooner or later, our children will choose for themselves, whether we like it or not, and if we spent their lives forcing them to do what's right, they may not choose the right so readily as we might hope.

We may do everything humanly possible to be good parents... and have children who grow up to make bad choices and end up in jail.  On the other hand, we could be utterly selfish and yet churn out kids who become doctors who choose to give freely of their services in third-world countries.  The choices our children ultimately make don't define our success (or failure) as parents.  There are countless people who have risen above a horrible upbringing to become outstanding leaders.  Unfortunately, the reverse is also true.

Soooo, getting back to the main point, the truest definition of our success (or not) as parents, is whether (or not) we become what we should.  It's whether (or not) we do what we should.  It's whether (or not) we live as we should.  If we are really and truly guided by the principle of loving others as ourselves and God most of all, then the question of how many serves of veges our kids have eaten today fade into insignificance.  The right actions will naturally flow from the right frame of mind.

Of course, none of us will ever love our children perfectly in this lifetime, because we are still human.  But if we are truly motivated to become what we should, then in the grand scheme of things - regardless of what our children choose to do with their lives - we will truly have succeeded.