c. 1998 Religion News Service
(Tom Ehrich is the author of”On a Journey,”daily meditations available through Journey Publishing Co. If you have feedback or want to suggest a question for a future column, send e-mail to: journey(AT)interpath.com)
UNDATED _”I’m just about sick with hurt and disgust,”writes a reader.
Her son is a freshman at college.”The first semester he did OK,”she says.”This second semester he is not applying himself, and I think he is failing.” She feels betrayed and embarrassed.”I have prayed, talked, worked my fingers to the bone to send him to college. Now he is choosing to do his own thing. I am embarrassed that he is not strong and wanting an education.” She asks for advice.
Snippets of theory go through my head: tough love; it’s his life; don’t protect him from the consequences of his behavior; just be there for him when he falls; failure is a good teacher.
But parenting isn’t about theory. Years ago, a group of churches invited a well-known child psychologist to teach. He was insightful and persuasive. He told stories of when he made the perfect response to just such a moment. I remember listening to him, thinking about my two preschool boys at home, and worrying,”I can’t do this. I can’t remember all these smart things.” Parenting is about doing the best one can. For some, best is fantastic. They are always patient, wise, cheerful, prosperous, never tiring of Boy Scouts. For most of us, best seems barely good enough. We chafe under children’s demands, we say all the stupid things we remember our parents saying to us, we don’t give our children everything they want or need, and we find Scouting tedious beyond belief.
But we go to the soccer games, do the 2 a.m. feedings, referee sibling squabbles, turn from the computer when a child draws near, dig deep at the mall, and worry. Just like this mother, we worry.
And like her, we love. There’s a reason why the most enduring image for God is that of parent: loving a willful but helpless child who takes more than she gives is a perfect expression of self-denial and sacrifice.
Last Sunday, I tasted the miracle that lies inside parenting. My eldest son was”rector”of Happening, an Episcopal renewal event for teens. My middle son was on the team. As I watched my firstborn stand shyly but confidently before 200 people, as I heard him voice words of faith, as I saw teens and grown-ups respond warmly to his self-deprecating humor, I felt awe. I didn’t do this. Oh, I contributed. But this is his doing and God’s doing. I didn’t take the blame when he got into trouble. I can’t take the credit when he soars.
Frankly, I think it is a miracle that children grow up at all healthy.
When you figure that one in four girls is sexually molested and one in six boys, that perhaps a fourth of all children grow up with alcoholism in their families, that lean and mean employers are demanding absurd time commitments from parents who have kids waiting at the day-care center, that children of the wealthy tend to make sure other children know they are wealthy, that entire industries are devoted to distorting our children’s sense of self and tapping their disposable income, and that bruised children take their bruises into neighborhood friendships and high school romances _ it is a miracle that children survive with any faculties intact.
At the Happening, teen-agers shared their experiences of the weekend. The common theme: We talked about our problems, and we were heard. This wasn’t a therapy session. It was a safe, holy place for young people to share the pain of being human.
My one word of advice to a wounded parent: may your home and heart be a safe, holy place for your son to share his wounds. The F on his report card won’t hurt you nearly as much as it hurts him. That F isn’t about you. But the confused soul not knowing his need of help, the newly free tasting the harsh reality of independence, the young man encountering his limits _ that is about you, because it draws from you the single most important gift you can ever give: unconditional love.
DEA END EHRICH
