Many thanks to Bourgeois Wife for
her thoughts and to those participating in her
carnival on parenting styles and theology responding to my forward-looking curiosity. (No, I’m not pregnant, in case you thought that was a veiled hint. Sheesh!) Bribing respected, well-heeled parents to share their wisdom over dinner was a brilliant idea of Bourgeois Wife and Burglar, and I also was heartened by her equipoise, thinking both in terms of the long-term process of nurturing another person and in terms of one stage at a time.
Two notions really struck me in reading the carnival, especially pertaining to the influence of theology on parenting. The following thoughts are the fruit of a discussion with Drumstick last night about it all.
Firstly, as
Kelly reminds us, the goal of parenting is not a well-behaved child, but pointing a soul to Christ. This insight launched a discussion between Drumstick and I on the difference between parenting focused on behavior management and parenting focused on creating a space in which a child is encouraged, enabled, and reasonably persuaded to give herself wholly to Christ. Much of what Kelly said really resonated with us, but we had a few comments to add.
Aiming
merely at managing behavior treats a child like a beast (à la B.F. Skinner and Pavlov). Whether that is done with threats or rewards, spanking, the “naughty chair”, emotional manipulation, or cognitive therapy (!), the mindset behind it treats the child in a thoroughly materialistic fashion by focusing solely on creating outward conformity and ignoring the soul. This attitude fails to take into account that it is an image-bearing person that you are attempting to control, not an animal. When your strategies for teaching your child manners do not differ much from those you would apply to training your dog—noble as dogs may be!—there is something seriously amiss. To be content with a well-mannered child is to aim too low and consequently to risk feeding hidden monsters of rebellion and pride prowling around the heart.
In contrast, acting in order to create a space for encounter with Christ in a child’s life cannot but presume that the child is a person who images the God who reveals himself personally to human persons. Behavior is managed not only for the ease of social relations (which is indisputably a good), but primarily because doing so can help a child to understand what it means to be responsible to the loving person who has charge over her and calls her into a flourishing relationship with him.
That said, it is still the case that sometimes a parent just has to say, “Stop that right now!” (possibly adding an “OR ELSE!” for good measure) and he cannot immediately do the soul-work part of his role. What do you do when, in the moments when you both are flying by the seat of your pants, you do not have the time or resources to deal with your child as a whole person? One idea is a later breakdown of the day at bedtime (something my parents did with me) where things whether good or bad are talked over with a parent. This could take many forms. Those who are more introverted can be asked to draw a picture of their day or to tell a story about an imaginary character or one of their stuffed animals, while the parent gently prods with questions and offers a Christ-formed perspective and a chance for forgiveness (and any apologies for parental errors!). This is all non-parent speculation of course, but I suppose it could be a way to model with the child a meditative heart before God.
In your anger do not sin;
when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent.
Selah
Offer right sacrifices
and trust in the LORD.
~ Psalm 4:4-5
Secondly, Kelly’s discussion of the effect of a theology of original sin on the way a parent regard’s a child’s behavior was interesting, and I would love to hear more on this line from parents. As Drumstick is fond of quipping, “What a cute little bundle of sin!” It seems to me that while parents must begin with the recognition that a child is a gift of God in the form of a person made in his image, parents must also recognize that this little person is marred, whether by concupiscence or original sin. Marred, but not disfigured out of all recognition, and there lies the tension that informs practical decisions by parents. When has the child crossed the line from expressing a proper need to selfish manipulation?
Now add to this tension the complexity of infant persons. Very young infants are taken up with learning first
what it means to be in the world and second
how to act in the world: what another person is (something clearly not obvious to her, as it takes her a while to realize that pulling Mommy’s hair hurts Mommy even though it doesn’t hurt her), what her own self is as distinct from other persons, how the outside world relates to her, what toes are for, how to move arms and legs and body purposefully, how to drink, what hunger is for and how to deal with it, how to see things properly, how to give something attention, and so forth. The scope for moral action for such a person so taken up with the ins and outs of simply being and acting is highly limited, and thus her capacity for sin is likewise highly limited by opportunity. I don’t think that anyone really attributes manipulation to a three-week-old wailing in hunger or loneliness: both indicate true human needs that ought to be satisfied and she is right to look to others to satisfy those needs as God has designed. For
very young infants (
contra St. Augustine), it seems reasonable to suppose that sinful actions are at most a rarity and extraordinarily hard to identify, especially since parents too are learning who this little person is and how she expresses her very self. At the same time, a baby’s scope for moral action is slowly but constantly expanding as the infant comes to understand more about what it means to be a person (both for herself and for other persons) and comes to be able to act more and more significantly in the world. The problem of dealing with the concupiscence of your child then, becomes in the first year of her life largely an epistemological one: how do you know that at this instant, in this action, your child is manifesting a sinful heart? (See
Rebecca’s post about an incident with her young son, Caleb, as a practical example of this that is very inspiring!)
Drumstick’s summary agrees pretty much with Kelly's: bring all the wisdom you can to each situation, and then err on the side of grace.
We often talk of teaching our children obedience, justice, responsibility, and so forth, so that they can then understand by analogy God’s relationship to them as Lord and King. Surely, then, we ought also to think hard about opening up for our children avenues of grace, for how else can we prepare their hearts to be as receptive to God’s grace as they are to his rule? The role of grace in parenting – now there’s a topic!
