Parents: Stop Asking the Wrong Question

There's an excellent article in this month's edition of Christianity Today. The article is "The Myth of the Perfect Parent" by Leslie Leyland Fields.

Here are a few blurbs:

The question we ask of ourselves must be reframed. We need to quit asking, "Am I parenting successfully?" And we most certainly need to quit asking, "Are others parenting successfully?" Instead, we need to ask, "Am I parenting faithfully?" Faithfulness after all, is God's highest requirement...

If we are graded [as parents] instead on an absolute scale--as I believe we are--we fail even more miserably. But this is why a Savior was provided, and gifted to us through grace, through faith--"and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works so that no one can boast" (Eph. 2:8-9). If even our ability to believe in God is given to us by God, then how much of parenting can we perform on our own? We must proceed then, on our knees first, beggars before the throne, if we are to parent well...

We will parent imperfectly, our children will make their own choices, and God will mysteriously and wondrously use it all to advance his kingdom...

We are not sovereign over our children--only God is. Children are not tomatoes to stake out or mules to train, nor are they numbers to plug into an equation. They are full human beings wondrously and fearfully made. Parenting, like all tasks under the sun, is intended as an endeavor of love, risk, perseverance, and, above all, faith. It is faith rather than formula, grace rather than guarantees, steadfastness rather than success that bridges the gap between our own parenting efforts, and what, by God's grace, our children grow up to become.