As a mom, I always feel like I’m winging it.
Every day I’m just making stuff up as I go along. Every new situation that comes up is another chance to improvise. To pinch hit. To try something and see if it works. If it doesn’t work, I try something else.
For a long time, this made me feel like a complete failure as a mom. I thought I should know. I believed the lie that everyone else has somehow figured it out.
Can I tell you something crazy that I’ve just recently realized?
There’s no such thing as a parent who’s got it all figured out.
The ones that act like they do? They’re totally lying.
Because here’s the truth …
NO ONE KNOWS WHAT THEY’RE DOING. (Some people just have more experience in not knowing.)
There are no classes you can take that will give you the answers…
No class on What to Do When Your Two-year-old Bites You.
No class on Appropriate Response When Your Five-year-old Gets in a Fight With a Classmate.
No class on How to React When Your 15-year-old Daughter Tells You She’s Pregnant.
Parenting is really just improvisation. And lots of prayer.
And yet as a mom, I still feel the daily pressure to raise my kids to love God and all He embodies: Truth, Light, Love, Goodness, Peace. And I have no idea how to do that.
So this morning when I read this Huff Post article, something clicked…
I don’t have to do anything.
Just by being me – by inviting them into my real journey, struggles and all – my kids will learn about life. About Truth. About Light (and darkness.) About Love. About Goodness. About Peace.
“Mothers and fathers who practice what they preach and preach what they practice are far and away the major influence related to adolescents keeping the faith into their 20s, according to new findings from a landmark study of youth and religion.”
It’s so simple.
We make parenting so complicated, but it doesn’t have to be.
Be real with your kids. Don’t say one thing and do another – they’ll see through that. Just be yourself, flaws and all, and invite your kids along for the ride.
God’s got the rest.