Perfect Parenting
Like most parents, I think I felt most confident in my parenting abilities before I became one. I would look at other people’s screaming toddlers in the grocery store and think that my children would never act in such a way. Elementary school bully... not my kid. Backtalking, eye-rolling teenagers? My children will never do such a thing. Then I became a parent. Faced with the reality of day to day parenting, my children’s inherent sin nature (and mine), and my need for sleep and alone time, parenting became daunting.
However, like the great networker and researcher that I am, I found mommy and me play groups. I talked with child development specialists. I read parenting books. I had reward systems mapped out and was getting the hang of this thing. I was gaining confidence as a mom.
Then they got older. Hormones were changing. Schedules got more demanding. They became more independent. Can you believe they no longer wanted to wear the clothes I picked out? They wanted to set up their own “play dates” with kids I didn’t even know. My tried and true consequences were no longer working. I even noticed that conversations with my mom friends had shifted. We used to often commiserate over potty training and sleep schedules. Now, we often didn’t have time to talk because we were driving our kids from one place or another. We all tended to rattle off our children’s accomplishments and schedules, more than the real day to day issues. I felt like I needed a Mothers of Teenagers support group, but no one else (including me) wanted to admit that they were struggling.
I guess I shouldn’t say no one wanted to share. As I’ve always had a handful of friends that I’ve been able to turn to when I really needed advice or someone to talk through an issue. But I felt overall, most moms were not sharing the hard stuff. It gets tricky as your children get older. You start to consider the child’s privacy more. They even ask you (or demand) that you not tell their business to anyone. Their actions suddenly have much larger consequences that can be confusing to navigate. While it can be funny to share about your preschooler cutting their own hair, it’s more embarrassing to tell someone that your teen stole the car and ran into the neighbor’s house. In the Christian world, it’s even trickier when you have to admit that perhaps your children no longer believe in God and you are left wondering where in the world you went wrong. This parenting stuff is no joke.
But in the midst of the sleepless nights, worries, and heartache (which happens at all stages of parenting) there can be so much hope and joy. There’s peace in the late night cuddles with a fussy baby. There’s hope when they come to you late at night to talk about their latest friendship struggles. (Why do the teens always want to get really deep when it’s almost midnight?) There’s joy as you see their personalities emerge and you see them find their place in this world. And there is true freedom when you realize that God is the one in charge of it all.
Perhaps my biggest struggle in parenting has been giving up control. Or really, it’s the realization that I never had control in the first place. I teach them right from wrong. I model forgiveness, compromise, and care for others. I share with them about God and His Word and try to model that relationship for them. I can influence them, but ultimately, it’s their decision what they do with it all. God entrusted these children to me, but they truly belong to Him. The lack of control can be a tough pill to swallow, but it can also be freeing. My job is to glorify God in all that I do, it’s not to make perfect human beings. My children will make mistakes. I will too. My prayer is that my response to these trials will glorify God and point my children to their Perfect Heavenly Father.
Melissa Busby serves in the women’s, youth, and children’s ministries at South Shore Baptist Church in Hingham, MA, where her husband serves as senior pastor.