Every first day of school, my mom would greet us at the door with a plate of homemade cookies.
And then, from the second day of school on through the last, we three kids would let ourselves in the house, fix ourselves snacks, and wait until Mom or Dad got home to start dinner. By junior high, I was making my own lunch and doing my own laundry. My parents didn’t have to tell me to become my own person or to explore my areas of giftedness. They gave me the gift of showing me the vital importance of using their own gifts.
I’m coming to learn that my upbringing was unique. Many of my friends grew up with parents (usually mothers) whose sole focus was their children. This had little to do, by the way, with whether these parents worked outside the home. It rather had to do with a single-mindedness that put pressure on their children to keep their parents happy. These friends conformed to behavior patterns I see in many young people today: accepting only As at school, overextending themselves in extracurricular activities, hiding themselves from their parents out of fear or shame.
A wise family friend frequently reminded my parents to never make their happiness contingent on their children. Both Mom and Dad would say that was some of their hardest, yet best, work; in removing us from the center of their life, they made room for Christ at the center.
And, according to The New York Times, they also ensured greater success for their children. A recent NYT article explored the effects of “overparenting,” reporting that children showed higher confidence and succeeded in their endeavors not when they were coddled or encouraged, but when their interactions with adults are appropriately authoritative. “The happiest, most successful children have parents who do not do for them what they are capable of doing, or almost capable of doing,” reports Madeline Levine.
Parents who give their children appropriate independence, all while exercising their own gifts, means they have found what behavioral psychologist Mikhail Csikszentmihalyi calls “Flow.” Flow is a place of greatest usefulness and aliveness that frees us up to play our part in the body of Christ, the part no one else can play. When a dancer makes her craft look effortless, a leader runs a meeting with grace and humor, or a maintenance person stays late to make sure the hospital floors are clean, they are caught up in Flow.
Please hear me: I am not saying that in order to find your Flow, you must find a paid job outside the home. I am not saying that there is only one correct way to raise a family, and that my parents were the best at it. (Believe me, I could tell you stories.)
What I am saying is:
— We each are gifted by God and called to use those gifts for the Kingdom. 1 Peter 4:10-11 reminds us of this: “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.”
— There is a generation of young people who feel entitled to having a parent at home for them at all times—someone to do their laundry, make their meals, clean their dishes, and make them feel better when they are down. And this is where so much of our modern, feel-good society gets it wrong. Young children need this from their parents because they cannot provide it for themselves. But I’d venture to say that if a 19 year-old’s parents are still doing her laundry, they are doing something wrong. Let me be clear: to serve your family members is a wonderful thing. But to treat your almost-adult child like a young child is doing a disservice to everyone in your community, your daughter chief among them. As a parent, you need to recognize your gifts and use them in a way that does not hamper the growth and individuation of your child.
Women are no more inherently responsible for the care of the domestic life than men. Some Christians will say it is permissible for mothers to work outside the home only if the family’s financial situation demands it. Baloney. Women, as men, are called to exercise the fullest expression of their unique giftedness wherever God may take them. And if we answer to God that we have squandered or hidden our talents in fear of prescribed gender roles, we can trust that he will call us to account.
My mom, for the record, would have made a terrible stay-at-home mother for 22 years. Submitting herself to God’s will in her areas of giftedness meant getting outside the house regularly, working at our church to develop and lead a group of 20-somethings on their journey to become fully devoted followers of Christ. It was one of the most vocationally fulfilling times of her life, and because of that, I have a concrete picture of what it looks like to be alive in Christ. While the cookies on the first day of school were great, I valued more deeply the ability to see my mom come fully alive in what she did. We children always came first, but we were not the only thing that mattered.
If a mother (or father) experiences a calling from God to remain at home with their children, what a wonderful thing! This is often how family life plays out at the beginning, when children are too young to care for themselves. But daycare is not the enemy of familial growth, and faithfulness to God can take on as many varieties as there are souls on this earth.
An excellent article in the latest edition of Relevant magazine notes that director Martin Scorsese once planned to be a priest before devoting his life to making movies.
Author David Roark writes, “Raised in a religious home, [Scorsese] attended Catholic school and spent a year in seminary. His life was once solely dedicated to the gospel. And though it’s uncertain where his beliefs are today, it is clear he is still working through his faith. Scorsese’s movies have been a lucid autobiography of his convictions and his struggles. He once stated, ‘My whole life has been movies and religion. That’s it. Nothing else.'”
Roark goes on to give a brief film-by-film examination of the spiritual themes of the director’s movies. It’s worth a look.
