I’m sitting on my couch, staring at a blank screen. I hope you’re not looking for any parenting wisdom, because I have none to offer. I’m tired. Yesterday, my kids succeeded in shattering two glasses, covering themselves with pureed blueberry glop, and ruining a few new items of clothing all in one fell swoop. I closed them in their room and said, “I don’t want to see your faces or hear your voices for a long, long time.” Then I scraped the blueberry gunge off the floor and gingerly picked through shards of glass and put the salvageable clothes in a bucket to soak and scrubbed the little flecks of blueberry skin off the bottom of the bathtub.
In moments like this, there is no magic. I don’t think to myself, “Ah, here is the hand of God at work in my heart. Here is fodder for growth. Here, with eyes to see and a healthy imagination, I can find jewels of truth and wisdom.” Nope. I just feel furious, exhausted, hopeless, empty. In moments like this, I have flashes of fantasy: I get in the van and drive away and start a new life as a corporate muckety-muck. I wear makeup every day. I live in a cozy townhouse with no smeary fingerprints on the walls.
Sigh.
There’s something sinister in even the most honest, insightful blog posts. Behind the encouraging words, the fresh insights, and the genuine candor, a lie is lurking. I swallow the lie right along with the truths, and I’m sick to death of it. Perhaps you’ve suffered as I have. Perhaps you’ve scoured the internet and ransacked your friends’ brains and read dozens of books searching for the secret. You’ve been struck by a catchy statement in bold print. You’ve typed it out and slapped it on your fridge and clung to those words with all your might. Perhaps you’re hoping to find the answers here at Story Warren.
Beware. The lie is here, too. It shadows the words of writers with hearts for families and hearts for the kingdom. Can you spot it when you see it?
If I read aloud to my children every day…
If I inspire them with stories of beauty and truth…
If I give them a clear picture of God and His love…
If I surround them with beauty…
If I reorganize the house…
If I take a different approach to discipline…
If I show more patience…
If I teach them to think for themselves…
If we memorize passages of Scripture…
If we find a strong community…
If we get outside ourselves and give to those in need…
If I change their diets…
If I give them the healthiest food money can buy…
If I keep a journal…
If I make a scrapbook…
If I treasure the little moments…
Subtle, isn’t it? I’ve just lied to you a dozen times over. I’ve told you that I have the answer, that, with a few small adjustments, you, too, can set out on the Golden Path of Perfect Parenting. I’ll bet you’re already worried about the areas in the list that need improvement. I’ll bet you’re beginning to fear the consequences of your weak spots. Or maybe you’ve just been inspired. You’ve caught a glimpse of the Golden Path, and you’re ready to give it another try.
The myth of the Golden Path haunts our dreams; it steals our joy. Yet we cannot let it go. The image is so bright. On that road, the very stones shine, and the beams of sunlight are so solid they stand like warriors with swords raised high. They make promises. They offer guarantees. How many times have I set out boldly on that path, only to have it vanish beneath my feet before I crossed the first rise? I got tired, got lost, and I gave up. Until I read the next blog post.
When you’re drowning, everything looks like a lifeline.
Somewhere along the way, we allowed that verse about “strait is the gate and narrow is the way and few there be that find it” to take on connotations for which it was never intended. We began to think that, even with all the billions of souls God has uniquely created, with the myriad unique situations in which we find ourselves every single day, there is one right way to parent our children. Of course there are some fundamentals. Of course there are some guidelines. But we want parenting to be like algebra. We want to insert certain variables and obtain unimpeachable results.
But show me a room full of middle-aged parents, and I’ll show you a room full of people who battled their demons in front of their children and because of their children and alongside their children. I’ll show you people who, with the deepest love and the greatest effort, still managed to fail their children. We fear their regrets, their heartache. No, fear isn’t strong enough. We are crippled, incapacitated by the very thought. And rather than surrender, we gird up our loins with new resolve. Our children will be different, we say. If we get it right, if we give enough, our little ones will romp from victory to victory. We catch another glimpse of the Golden Path and off we go again.
But when it vanishes like a mirage in the desert, what then?
If our children suffer?
If they insist on traveling all the hardest roads?
If they reject the things we hold most dear?
If, despite our best efforts, we…fail them?
What then?
There’s a torment in these questions that keeps us from ever quite coming to the point of asking them. We don’t want to hear from those middle-aged parents who have found themselves in the wasteland we so hope to avoid. Perhaps that’s for the best. I don’t know. They might try to set us out on another Golden Path, one forged by their own wishes and regrets.
But if we did ask the hard questions, if, God forbid, we woke one morning and found ourselves face to face with them? What then?
I think I can venture a guess.
We would be broken, and the awful questions would rush out of us and over us, and the noise would be terrible, and we would be sure that we could not endure the pain.
After that, there would be silence.
Silence.
And in the silence, a wide space would open up, wide enough for us to see at last that Jesus is smiling on us, opening his arms to embrace us with pride.
We’ll raise a protest, won’t we? Like the prodigal, we’ll have a speech prepared. “We’re hurting, and we ought to have known. If we hadn’t been so broken, we could’ve done it. We could’ve led our precious children down that Golden Path, and then none of this would’ve happened.”
He’ll stop us mid-sentence and put a ring on our finger and a robe on our back. For in losing what we thought we most needed, we’ll have found our way home to the only Answer, the only Way. We’ll be given more than we dared hope to find. We’ll have conquered.
- The School of Wonder - September 18, 2023
- Celebrations - December 6, 2021
- The Junkyard Wonders - October 6, 2021
I’m a parent in that very wasteland, and I miss the seasons where all I had to burden me was the blueberry stains. Thanks for the beautiful piece of writing, and hope. There is always hope.
So sorry that you’re facing this, Melissa. I know of so many others in the very same place.
Oh my. Yes and yes.
My woman’s Bible study group is working through a parenting book right now. It’s a good, solid book, with godly principals as the foundation. And yet as I read it I find myself constantly facing a beast that whispers, “You have failed, you have failed, you have failed.”
Thank you for the reminder of who I am and who my children are in Christ.
Loren, mine are still so little, but I hear that voice all the time. Right now I’m praying for deep revelation that God accepts me not just as His child, not just as a woman, but AS A MOTHER.
I’m with you!
Thank you! I needed this!
So glad, Sandy!
There are two things that come to my mind when looking back on raising my children. The first are words from your own grandmother’s mouth. “Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, your turn is over.” The other is about our Heavenly Father who gave everything to his children, placed them in a perfect environment, loved them only as He can and yet they chose their own way. What makes us think we are greater than our Abba?
Thank you, thank you, Helena. I’m all too familiar with the hyperventilating, hysterical panic of trying and failing to “parent well.” I SO needed this loving face-slap.
The gospel is for prodigals and ragamuffins. Even prodigal and ragamuffin parents. Thank God, and thank you for the reminder.
You really have a way of putting things…. 🙂
This is the best and the bittersweet pain of parenthood. What comfort in the final lines. Like a good Psalm that leads you through the desolation, yet yields to the warmth of the Father at the end. Thanks for this.
Jesus, simply Jesus is the answer…..but some days that is so hard to remember. Thank you for the reminder.
Dang. Beautiful.
Perfect timing! Mine are getting grown and I fight the lies every single day. It’s so hard to remember that it’s ALL ABOUT HIM. It’s not about my ability to keep to the golden path. This may be my favorite post ever.
Exactly! Thanks so much, Mollie.
Well said, Helena. Needs to be said. Thank you for being honest and clear and hopeful.
I know we supply our very own version of this from time to time at SW and I HOPE so much we can be allies to weary parents instead of a false hope of “salvation” from mediocrity/failure.
Mmmm. Also well said. I agree that it’s not the content; it’s the perspective, the lurking belief that this one thing, or these one hundred things, or anything, apart from Jesus, is really the hope for us and our children.