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Not Plug-and-Play

ByKelly Keller

I am a child of the 80s, so video games were just coming onto the scene when I was young. I remember my first interaction with an Atari: it was an attempt at playing “Combat,” which is a slow-moving tank battle game. I can still hear the droning sound of the tanks inching their way across the TV screen as we mashed the controllers as hard as we could.

The Atari system was a “plug-and-play” situation, which meant it didn’t require a lot of complex setup to work on any TV. Whether you had a black-and-white twelve-inch TV or a larger color one (I remember both of these options in my neighbors’ homes!), the system would work without any configuration required. It didn’t matter what screen you had; the experience was the same across the board: same input, same output. In this way, I guess you could say that the Atari was no respecter of persons, which made it really easy to set up and use.

Manufacturers still use this terminology for programs or systems that don’t need a lot of input or feedback from the consumer. If you can buy something, plug it into your existing devices, and it works right away, then it’s “plug-and-play.”

Sometimes we fool ourselves into thinking that people are plug-and-play. The fastest remedy I know for this is a few days spent in the company of a newborn. Or maybe a three-year-old is necessary. They are pros at defying expectations and doing things in new, baffling ways—ways that aren’t covered in the parenting books. Go ahead and prepare; do everything according to the books. Your children will humble you—and the authors of the books—by simply being themselves.

If our children aren’t responding the way we expected, sometimes we can become embittered. We look at another family and wonder why that method works for them and not for us. When this occurs, it’s evidence that we’ve forgotten a couple of things:

  1. Principles for parenting are different from methods of parenting. Principles are the big-picture things, things we can find in Scripture, like love, truthfulness, faithfulness, discipline, etc. Methods are the ways we might carry those out. Hear me: OF PARENTING METHODS THERE IS NO END. You may find a method works for your neighbor’s family and not for yours. You may find a method works for you one week and not the next. You may find a method that works for one of your children but not the next. Repeat after me: this is utterly normal. Your goal is to carry out the principle, not the method.
  2. You’ve got to parent the people in front of you. Just like your friends have different ways of being listened to and loved, so do your kids. Parents don’t get to wish away the kids they’ve been given. And of course, on your good days, you would never do such a thing. But sometimes our wishing for control of the method can give our kids the impression that we wish they were someone else. Let’s not do this.

Fleeing the temptation to plug-and-play parenting requires a lot more courage and a lot more patience than strict adherence to a method. In the long run, it is an exercise of faith: one in which we understand that parenting not only changes our kids, but also us.

Teachers have to teach the class they’re assigned; pastors have to shepherd the congregation that gathers; parents have to parent the kids they are blessed with. It’s not plug-and-play. There is a lot of “configuration” required!

And it’s not actually “have to,” but “get to.” The diversity of struggles and gifts in the family is one representation of the largeness of the Kingdom and the imagination of our God.

“You mustn’t wish for another life.
You mustn’t want to be somebody else.
What you must do is this:
‘Rejoice evermore.
Pray without ceasing.
In everything give thanks.’
I am not all the way capable of so much,
but those are the right instructions.”

Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter
Kelly Keller
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