I Don't Want to Raise Good Kids

I don’t think that it’s any big secret that I have struggled with motherhood, and will most likely continue to do so for many years to come.  Annabel and Thane are independent, strong willed, gregarious and have minds of their own.  While we pray that these qualities will help turn them into successful adults, they certainly make parenting during these preschool years a major challenge.  On top of our daily struggles with our nonconformist children, we seem to be surrounded by parents who have more malleable, easy going kids – you know, the folks who think that their children are saintly angels due to their superior parenting and not because they were blessed with offspring who have more passive personalities.  I’ve prayed and asked God so many times to show me how to be a better, more effective parent.  The answer I get over and over again is to be firm and stand my ground, but NOT to crush my children’s spirits.  Yes, that sounds great and gives me a momentary sense of calm.  The reality, however, is that it’s hard to channel those feelings when my children are exhuberant, loud and excessively energetic.  (I’m not talking about rudeness or bad behavior – just an uncontainable, free spirited zest for people and life).   I find myself getting embarrassed and angry at their antics, and I often try to pass off these emotions as being justified.  But is it really fair for me to get angry at my kids because their sometimes unconventional behavior makes me look like a bad parent? 

I’ve been thinking about this so much lately, and I came across a great devotional by Lysa TerKuerst that has truly helped me look beyond this daily struggle to make my kids look good.  Many of you have moved onto the next phase of your life and won’t need to read the following.  But for all of you young mothers out there, I hope that you find it as refreshing as I did.   Hang in there! 

 

I Don't Want to Raise a Good Kid

Lysa TerKuerst

My daughter, Hope, is a senior this year.  And she decided her senior year should be adventurous and a little out of the “normal” box.  A lot out of the box actually.  She withdrew from traditional school, applied with the state to homeschool, enrolled in on-line college courses that would allow her to get both high school and college credit simultaneously, and planned to spend the month of January serving in Nicaragua doing missions.  This didn’t surprise me really because Hope has always liked charting her own course.

When she was really little I was scared to death I was the world’s worst mom, because Hope was never one to be contained.  And I honestly thought all her extra tenacity was a sign of my poor mothering.

One day I took her to the mall to meet several of my friends with toddlers to grab lunch. All of their kids sat quietly eating cheerios in their strollers.  They shined their halos and quoted Bible verses and used tissues to wipe their snot.

Not Hope.

She was infuriated by my insistence she stay in her stroller.  So, when I turned away for a split second to place our lunch order, she wiggled free.  She stripped off all her clothes.  She ran across the food court, and jumped in the fountain in the center of the mall.  Really nothing makes the mother of a toddler feel more incapable than seeing her naked child splashing in the mall fountain.  Except maybe that toddler refusing to get out and said mother having to also get into the fountain.

I cried all the way home.  Not because of what she’d done that day, but rather because of how she was everyday - so determined, so independent, so insistent.  I would beg God to show me how to raise a good child. One that stayed in her stroller.  One that other people would comment about how wonderfully behaved she was.  One that made me look good.

But God seemed so slow to answer those prayers.  So, over the years, I changed my prayer.  ”God help me to raise Hope to be who you want her to be.”  Emphasis on, “God HELP ME!”  I think I changed my prayers for her because God started to change my heart.  I started sensing He had a different plan in mind for my mothering of Hope.  Maybe God’s goal wasn’t for me to raise a good rule following child. God’s goal was for me to raise a God-following adult.  An adult just determined and independent and insistent enough to fulfill a purpose He had in mind all along.

I don’t know what mama needs to hear this today.  But let me encourage you from the bottom of my heart with 3 simple mothering perspectives you must hang on to:

1.  Don’t take too much credit for their good.

2.  Don’t take too much credit for their bad.

3. Don’t try to raise a good child.  Raise a God-following adult.

And all the mamas of fountain dancing children said, “Amen!”