OUT OF MY DEPTH
WHY IS PARENTING SO INCREDIBLY HARD?
BECAUSE KIDS ARE TERRIBLY SINFUL AND OTHER REASONS BY PAUL CARTER
I
had a rough day as a parent earlier this week. It wasn’t the first time, and I’m sure that it won’t be the last. My wife and I have 5 kids, and we have fostered 16 other children for varying lengths of time. If I have learned anything over the 20 + years of my marriage, it is that parenting is incredibly hard. I’m sure there are many reasons for that, but these 6 come immediately to mind. Parenting is incredibly hard, first of all:
PARENTING IS INCREDIBLY HARD:
BECAUSE KIDS ARE TERRIBLY SINFUL
Our culture thinks of children as innocent and impressionable, blank slates awaiting the external influences of education and culture. The Bible says something very different: “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him” (Proverbs 22:15 ESV). The Bible says that children come into the world already leaning in the direction of sin and rebellion. A fair bit of bad stuff comes preinstalled. Parenting is not ultimately about teaching right behaviours, it is about facilitating a right relationship. Your first job as a parent is to help your child relate to his or her Creator through the person of Jesus Christ. You are an evangelist, and God has sent you a sinner.
32 SEVEN MAY / JUNE 2018
That’s why parenting is so incredibly hard.
IT IS ALSO INCREDIBLY HARD:
BECAUSE CHANGE IS REMARKABLY SLOW
I feel like parenting would be easier if kids were better listeners and faster learners. I think I explain things brilliantly, and yet very little of what I say tends to result in positive action. I make a compelling case for the wisdom of starting each day with a clean room and a made bed. I tell stories about how professional athletes and military heroes learned this simple discipline at an early age. I talk about great journeys and single steps, and then I wake up the next morning to a house full of sloth and stupid. Was I not clear? Why are we not getting this? And the answer of course is that change is remarkably slow. Parenting is the fine art of saying the same thing 10,000 times over the course of 20 years without losing your mind. Change happens slowly. Bit by bit. Inch by inch. By one degree of glory to the next. This is a call for endurance.
THIRDLY, PARENTING IS ALSO INCREDIBLY HARD:
BECAUSE I AM BREATHTAKINGLY SELFISH
I find myself getting angry as a parent, more often than not, because the sinfulness of my children and the slowness of their growth and development interferes with my desire for rest, respect and recreation. I want to nap on Sunday afternoon. My children want to poke each other in the eye. I also want to be well thought of, but my children like to misbehave in public. I want to watch the hockey game, but inevitably, just before puck drop, someone comes downstairs for a glass of water, another story, or for some other mindnumbingly nonsensical excuse or reason. And Daddy gets upset, because Daddy is really, really, tired and really, really selfish. Of course I know that I won’t remember the score of this game three weeks from now, and I know that when I’m 75 years old I will care more about that glass of water or bedtime story than the fate of my beloved team, but still, Daddy really, really wants what he wants. And that’s why parenting is incredibly hard.
ITS ALSO INCREDIBLY HARD:
BECAUSE THE CULTURE IS TRAGICALLY CONFUSED
We send our kids out into a world where people are confused about the
