This article is part of the 5 Myths series.
Myth #1: There’s a way to do this perfectly.
We know we can’t, so why do we beat ourselves up when we mess up?
The first problem we have to address regarding this myth is that perfect might be a moving target. Next time you are trying to get to know a new couple, ask them each what the perfect thermostat setting is for their home. It’s not impossible to find a couple who shares temperature preferences, but it is comically common to find a couple who can never agree on the right setting. My wife prefers a balmy 78 degrees indoors. (I regret not working some thermostat standards into our vows.) I’d say she’s off by at least 10 degrees. If I can’t wear a hoodie and joggers in my own home twelve months a year, then I’m not comfortable.
In a lot of family circumstances, what someone considers a perfect outcome or perfect decision is subjective. What would be perfect to one parent would be a failure to another one. What is an ideal response to one kid may not affect another. It feels like perfect is always changing.
The second problem we have is that parenting is incredibly important. Anytime something is extra important, it comes with extra pressure to get it just right. This can drive moms and dads crazy. The area of our life that we most want to get perfect is also the most important. This is a recipe for shame, guilt, despair, and conflict.
This book provides parents with a gospel-centered perspective to navigate the challenges of parenting. With this hope, they can embrace their role with peace and confidence, trusting that Jesus is renewing both them and their children day by day.
The step to overcoming this myth isn’t just knowing that you aren’t going to parent perfectly; it’s to stop beating yourself up when you don’t. Can we try to do better? Always. Can we do more? Of course. Do we want to do this well? Absolutely. But it is not the Lord’s voice that torments those who fall short. He’s the one who sets the standard and forgives the wayward.
There is a way to parent that honors God, that walks his narrow way, and that will require us to seek his forgiveness and help. We will need forgiveness because our sin will find its way into our families, and we will need help because the work of leading a family to follow God requires the power of the Holy Spirit. You’ll never parent perfectly, but you’ll always be able to lean on a perfect God.
Myth #2: There’s no way to get this right.
The other extreme from the myth of believing we can find some perfection in us is believing that there’s nothing good we can do at all. Maybe you’ll relate to some of this that I see in me. I have no problem believing criticism, and I tend to shirk off encouragement. I speak to myself in ways I’d never let someone else speak to me. I advise others to be reassured in ways I’d struggle to receive myself. Sometimes there’s nothing easier for me to believe than that “I can’t” do something that requires a high level of skill and hard work. I’ll readily admit that in some things I’m inept, and in some areas I’m lazy, and in many things I lack both motivation and ability. So much of the theology of my childhood was steeped in what I can’t do for God because of my depravity that I began to believe that there was nothing that I could do that was good. I began to believe that good works were impossible and sinners could do nothing but bring God displeasure.
Then I had kids, and I realized that even imperfect, cranky, rebellious children are easy for me to delight in. And if I can delight in my own imperfect children, how much more so must the perfect heavenly Father be able to delight in me? I can believe more than ever that he means it when he says in 1 John 3:1, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” And though his pleasure is not tied to my abilities, he does empower us in our union with Christ to do good things, in faith, that bring him pleasure. Things in our home that are good that he prepared in advance for us to do. Goodness that comes to me as a fruit of the Spirit.
You’ll never parent perfectly, but you’ll always be able to lean on a perfect God.
Myth #3: I’m too exhausted.
Honestly, this is only a myth sometimes. Exhaustion is a very real thing. Overwork is a real problem. The reason I want to include it here is because a lot of the good work of discipleship and parenting isn’t done in the name of exhaustion when, in reality, it is not energy that we lack; it is enthusiasm. We’ve got plenty in the tank. We can do this! We just honestly don’t feel like it.
When God offers us the fruit of “patience,” he offers us the tenacity to keep going even when things get hard. The New Testament is much more akin to grit than it is to timid waiting. When God offers us patience, he offers us the capacity to keep going even when things get hard. That’s why sometimes that word is translated as forbearance or longsuffering.
In parenting you will get tired, and even more often you will not feel like doing what should be done. But, in Christ and walking by the Spirit, you are offered the gift of patience—the capacity to keep going even when, outside of Christ, we would otherwise give up.
Myth #4: I’m too busy.
I get it. You’re working. You’re balancing schedules. You’re not sleeping a full night. I know you have a lot to do. I’m not saying you’re mistaken about your very full life. The myth is that the reason you are not discipling your kids is that you are too busy. I hear this a lot. We don’t read the Bible together or go to church together or spend time together because we are too busy. Yet I’ve never met the family who told me they don’t ever eat because they are too busy. Or the family who said that their kids didn’t have time to get an education because their family was too busy.
The truth is that we are not too busy to disciple our kids; it’s that other things have become more important to us. Of course, it will cost you something to follow God together as a family! That’s what a living sacrifice of worship is, something costly given to God. Whether that’s our strength or our time or our preferences, we lay it all at the feet of Christ and say, The more it costs me, the more I can see that it is an act of worship.
Your family is probably busy. But let’s be busy doing what God called us to do, even if it costs us everything else we would want to do.
Myth #5: The more control I have, the better off my family will be.
One of the most common lies I see in young marriages is, If my spouse would just think about this the same way I do, everything would be better. We do the same thing with how we follow God in our homes. If God could just make this work out the way I want, this would all be better. In other words, the root of this myth is that I act like I know better than God what would be good for me and my household.
Our kids have wild imaginations when they are little. They see unicorns and monsters, and their toys come to life to play with them, and something is hiding under their bed. The truth is that their parents have wild imaginations too. We imagine that the more control we have over our children and their circumstances, the better off they will be. This, of course, leads to anxiety and worry because every single day we have to face the fact that we are not actually in control.
God is always good, and he can always be trusted—even while suffering. His ways are surely higher than our ways. I don’t need to try to be everywhere, all-knowing, and all-powerful. I trust a God who is those things. The more I surrender to God, the better off my family will be.
Adam Griffin is the author of Good News for Parents: How God Can Restore Our Joy and Relieve Our Burdens.
