Parenting

Have you ever seen the movie, Simon Birch? It's a story about two 12-year-old boys in 1964. Joe is a regular kid except that no one but his mother knows who his father is, and the other is Simon Birch, a diminutive kid not expected to live beyond his first week and, therefore, deemed a miracle. The running theme (among other things) is Joe and Simon trying to figure out who his father is. I won't give it away, but his father was someone he knew, someone peripherally involved, giving occasional instruction or advice, but not really part of his life. And I found it to be an appropriate illustration of many parents today. They are present, to be sure, but only peripherally involved.

Perhaps one of the hardest (and, often, most rewarding) job ever assigned is the job of parenting. So I find it a bit odd that we take the job so lightly. Perhaps it's a side effect of the current failure to grasp marriage as it includes the propagation of the species or perhaps it's due to the ever popular "it's all about me" concept, but we just don't seem to make kids our priority. And when we think we do, it's either too much or too little. It's the "helicopter parent" syndrome or the "I've got to work 80 hours a week to provide for my child" without actually being in your child's life.

The Bible says that fathers are responsible for their children. We are responsible to love our wives (Eph 5:25) and to bring up our children "in the discipline and instruction of the Lord" (Eph 6:4). It's our responsibility. So, to that end, I'd like to make some suggestions.

Prioritize
We are often overrun by the tyranny of the urgent. It has to be done now. The truth is that there are many important things that would take precedence over the urgent. We need to set our priorities. "Standard of living" is urgent, but not important. Your own personal pleasure is urgent, but not important. Work isn't everything. "Regard one another as more important than yourselves" (Phil 2:3), and begin at home.

Encourage
We're usually much better at finding fault than encouraging. We are commanded to admonish the unruly, and we parents typically get that, but we're also commanded to encourage the fainthearted (1 Thess 5:14), and a constant stream of "admonish" without "encourage" makes anyone "fainthearted". "Therefore, encourage one another." (2 Thess 5:11) "Encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called 'Today,' so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." (Heb 3:13) Or, as Paul puts it, "Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart." (Col 3:21)

Love
We know we're supposed to love our kids. Do it. Do it when they're good. Do it when they're bad. Do it when you're busy and distracted. Do it when you think there are other things more important or more pressing. Love always, even in the hard times.

Teach
We understand we're supposed to teach our kids. So we send them to school and to Sunday School and ... and we end up handing off our God-given responsibility to others. Teach your kids. Teach always. The command was "These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up." (Deut 6:6-7) Let's see ... "when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up." That leaves ... no other time. Teach with words. Teach by example. Teach by living. Even when you allow others to teach them, be involved.

Live
The singularly biggest effect you will have on your kids will not be your words. It will be your life. Faith is lived. Anyone can tell what you believe by what you do. I remember the lesson from A Christmas Story where Ralphie was helping his father change a flat tire and blurted out, "Oh, fudge!", except, as the narrator tells us, it wasn't "fudge". Ralphie got in trouble for his profanity, but when they asked him where he learned it, he couldn't tell them the truth. He had learned it from his father. Without knowing it, his father had taught him more by example than with words. How you walk demonstrates what you believe. Bible, prayer, everyday morality, compassion, these things are lived more than spoken. You can say all the right things, but when you don't live them you nullify the lessons.

We know about a lot of this stuff. We know we're supposed to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. We just forget sometimes that we have that assignment, not the Sunday School teacher or the youth group leader. We know that work isn't everything, but it's hard sometimes to tell it from our actions. We know it's important. Clearly we forget. It's clear because the next generation is looking more and more like the world and less and less like disciples of Christ. If we are to make disciples, teaching them to obey all the we have been commanded, it would be a good idea to let it begin at home. There's no time to waste.