In my perspective from the grandma chair, I can see the world with different eyes. I can see all the mistakes and successes I had as a parent. My view of parenting is different from the perspective I had as a single woman who knew all the answers. In my pious judgment, I could see how parents were making mistakes in raising their children. If they were stricter with their children and gave them more consequences, their children would not turn out to be such terrors. When I began to raise children, I suddenly realized how short-sighted and wrong I had been. Parenting is hard. It is the process of teaching a child to navigate a world of opposites and make eternal choices without ending up in a viper pit.
By design, God intended life to be a journey of choices. We live in a world of opposites. We cannot understand the good without evil. We do not understand hot until we have experienced cold. Light is not discernible until we have walked in darkness. We cannot understand life unless we have seen death. We are not able to feel sorrow if we haven’t felt the ecstasy of joy.
That was the plan. God wanted Adam and Eve to experience the difference between good and evil so they could grow. If they had never eaten the forbidden fruit, they would never have learned from their own choices because there would not have been any choices to make. As we move through this mortal existence filled with opposites, we gradually learn to make choices designed to make us happy.
It is wonderful that God designed a family to help His children, so they do not have to experience everything before they understand the difference between good and bad choices. They don’t have to jump into a pit of vipers to know that it would not be a good choice. Good parents take the parenting responsibility seriously and will help their children avoid decisions that will scar them forever. They will also set them on a path that will help to discern between the bad, good, better and the best choices.
There are five spokes in the wheel of a child’s development that, if nurtured properly, will help the child to grow up to be productive and happy. Parents must help their children to make choices about their bodies, emotional identity, educational opportunities, recreational pursuits and spiritual development. In each of these areas, there are bad choices, good choices, better choices and the best choices.
Our society is full of parents who have no clue what it means to parent, because they were never parented. They were allowed to bump up against life and make their own mistakes, like ships without rudders. By default, they allow their children to grow up the same way. Their children wander through the maze of opposites, developing habits of bad choices. Often, bad choices lead to more bad choices. These children end up as social misfits and find themselves in jail or on the street because no one taught them that crime was wrong. No one taught them that an education is vital for success. No one taught them that their bodies were God’s special conduits to bring His children into the world and to perpetuate humanity. No one taught them that drugs and alcohol could destroy chances for happiness. In short, no one taught them the consequences of leaping into a pit of vipers. Sadly, there are more and more parents in our society who are abdicating their parental responsibilities to the whims of chance. There will be more and more children who join the cycle of wandering aimlessly through life until they are trapped in the viper pit.
Good parents take their parental duty seriously. They teach their children all the rules of society. They send them to school to get an education. They take them to church and teach them about God. They make sure their children make good decisions, often without teaching them how to make decisions: “It’s my way or the highway.” They put their children on the path to success but don’t tell them why they need to stay there. Sadly, when these parents aren’t around, these children don’t know how to make good choices. They flounder and sometimes even unwittingly end up in the viper pit. The parents shake their heads and wonder, “We taught them all the right things. Why did they make those mistakes?”
Better parents engage in every aspect of the child’s life. They become actively involved in school activities and education. They make sure children get good grades and monitor their parties and get to know the parents of their children’s friends. They eat meals with their children and talk about the events of the day. These parents take their children on family activities and enjoy spending time with them. They set rules and give consequences. They take their children to church and teach them the gospel. They teach them about God and prayer. They teach them the pattern of prayer and pray with them. These children are more apt to stay out of the viper pit and grow up to be happy, productive adults.
Best parents realize the magnitude of their stewardship over these children that are on loan from God. They realize parenting is a partnership with God, and that because of prayer, God is not a silent bystander. They recognize these precious children will one day be parents, and in turn their children will become parents. They recognize they are not teaching one child; they are parenting millions of future generations.
Best parents understand God’s plan of opposites and will teach the difference from the cradle to the grave, always allowing personal choice and consequence and unending support for mistakes. Best parents realize that words and consequences alone will not make the difference in a child’s behavior or ultimate success. They recognize autonomy belongs to the child, teen and adult. Best parents teach each spoke of the wheel in a child’s development methodically and teach them the importance and care for each aspect of his/her life. They help them learn to make age-appropriate choices and allow the natural consequences to follow. Best parents will teach children that their bodies are God’s temple and the home they must inhabit throughout their mortal journey: “Take care of your body. Guard it from predators and keep it safe because precious future generations live within your body and will one day walk the Earth. Give the future the best chance you can by not taking things into your body that would be passed on to them.”
Best parents will teach their children their emotional identity. There will be adversity and storms. That is the way we grow. Best parents will take time to help children sort through their emotions by allowing children to express their feelings without jumping in to solve the problems or telling them they shouldn’t feel that way. They will teach their children to see things from different perspectives and will teach them how to make proper decisions by allowing them to make mistakes. Best parents will not rescue their children from natural consequences, but will be with them and support them through their pain. They will teach them that Christ is the healer of all pain and prayer will make the difference.
Best parents will be mentors in every aspect of life. They will not just allow the school to be responsible for their children’s education. They will help their children sort through the sophistries of secular education and will help them look at the fruits of different philosophical trees before they adopt them as truth. They will ask often, “What do you think will happen if …?”
Best parents will not just allow their children to play. They will play with them. They will teach them to laugh and enjoy life.
Finally, best parents will not just take their children to church and teach them about God; they will teach them how to pray and to get answers. They will not just teach them to read the scriptures; they will teach them to translate scriptures into their own lives. They will walk with them and love them even when the final choices do not agree with their own.
