Parenting

A truck driver once said to me that he felt responsible, like a parent, for all the other driver’s on the roads. And I’m sure you have heard other people say, “Don’t mother me!’

Obviously there are different ideas of just what makes a parent out there. And probably we have all held both of them at one time or another, possibly even at the same time. When we say ‘Don’t mother me’, we are referring to that parent who is forever telling us what to do, what not to do, worrying over whether we have the brains to come in out of the rain. The second type of parent [the one we see ourselves as..lol…] is a parent who looks out for their children, whatever their ages. By their actions, that parent tries to make those lives as safe, as secure, as life-giving, as they possibly can.

A full definition of parenthood from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary is ‘the state of being a parent; specifically: the position, function, or standing of a parent’. According to the dictionary then, both of these are fulfilling the definition of parenthood. But which one would you prefer to have in your life: the parent who watches over you and does whatever they can, to make sure that you have the necessities of life while leaving you to make your own decisions OR a parent who is continually telling you to ‘do that’ or ‘do this’, all things that according to them, you should be doing?

There is no doubt that the ‘hands off’ kind of parenting is the hardest to implement, as it gives up the parent’s control to tell their children what the right path is. In this story from the Bible, where Jesus stills a storm, we see an example of this kind of parenting.

‘On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great gale arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.

But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’ And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’ [Mark 4.35-41]

Jesus, throughout his ministry acted like a parent to his followers, and this time proved no exception. When he was awakened by the terrified men, his first act was to look after the problem and calm the storm, only then did he turn his attention his followers, asking them to look to themselves for the reasons they had been afraid. It is interesting to note that he didn’t tell them that they shouldn’t have been afraid, just that they needed to decide for themselves why they had reacted in the way they had.

My question for us to ponder over the next while, is what kind of parenting is being done by the church and those within it? Are they ‘mothering’ their congregations or are they willing to try ‘hands off’ parenting, leading by example?