By Daniel Darling, Gages Lake Bible Church, Illinois
“You have nothing to worry about with your kids,” she told me one day, “because you’re doing everything right.” These words from a pastor’s wife were meant to encourage but actually provoked more questions than answers. The woman was well-meaning. She was saying there was no earthly way our kids could fail because my wife and I had been raised so well, we are grounded so deeply in our faith, and we subscribe to the “right” parenting techniques.
It was a lot of pressure. Our first daughter, Grace, had just turned 1. By all accounts we were doing a credible job. She was a good kid. The parental prophecy from our friend was often repeated in that first year of parenting. Dan and Angela are such great parents, aren’t they?
Fast forward two years and everything changed. Grace was in the throes of rebellion. Terrible 2s turned into terrible 3s. Even though our parenting paradigm had not changed, and we were subscribing to all of those same “right” methods, the same well-meaning woman pulled my wife aside and issued an apocalyptic warning about Grace. If we didn’t “get her under control,” she’d end up profligate child. Then she named some infamous rebels we both knew well. Others told us that Grace was “going to end up in jail if we didn’t do something, that she was “one of the worst kids we’ve seen.” So in a matter of a few years we moved from parenting savants to parenting dunces.
“You have nothing to worry about with your kids,” she told me one day, “because you’re doing everything right.” These words from a pastor’s wife were meant to encourage but actually provoked more questions than answers. The woman was well-meaning. She was saying there was no earthly way our kids could fail because my wife and I had been raised so well, we are grounded so deeply in our faith, and we subscribe to the “right” parenting techniques.
It was a lot of pressure. Our first daughter, Grace, had just turned 1. By all accounts we were doing a credible job. She was a good kid. The parental prophecy from our friend was often repeated in that first year of parenting. Dan and Angela are such great parents, aren’t they?
Fast forward two years and everything changed. Grace was in the throes of rebellion. Terrible 2s turned into terrible 3s. Even though our parenting paradigm had not changed, and we were subscribing to all of those same “right” methods, the same well-meaning woman pulled my wife aside and issued an apocalyptic warning about Grace. If we didn’t “get her under control,” she’d end up profligate child. Then she named some infamous rebels we both knew well. Others told us that Grace was “going to end up in jail if we didn’t do something, that she was “one of the worst kids we’ve seen.” So in a matter of a few years we moved from parenting savants to parenting dunces.
