2July2008
A Reflection on Parenting (Part 2)
Posted by Convallaria under: Younguns.
Kyle and I have been having some rather extended conversations about parenting and the direction in which we wish to lead our children (novel concept right?). And we’ve been discussing the fact that we want to instill into our children a forward thinking perspective that looks towards long term goals and benefits. Now Kyle tends to focus mostly on legacy building, but I have been coming back to the need to raise our children in an environment that embraces responsibility at an early age.
In my last post, I talked about the current definition of childhood and how we have culturally glorified it to an untenable position. I would like to further look at this social construct in light of our responsibility as parents to train our children.
In our zeal to appeal to the modern world, we’ve let society dictate to us how we should respond our children’s youthful urges and behaviors. This dictation is undermining Christian principles because it in no way acknowledges a Sovereign God who has given us the duty to mold our children to seek after the paths of righteousness. On the contrary, society would rather have us be our child’s ‘best friend’ and ‘understand what they’re going through’ than to follow our calling to love, admonish and discipline our children. Society would rather we give unconditionally to our children’s desires without thought to their rightful needs.
The desire to give good gifts to our children is not a bad thing and neither is wanting to shield them from worries. But to let society dictate that the best way to do that is to allow them free reign to pursue their desires is decidedly unchristian and detrimental to their ultimate happiness.
