Not long ago, I was still making my way through a valley of trials which caused me great pain and discouragement. I felt unable to help others. At times, I felt nearly hopeless. What I didn’t know then that I know now is that God would gradually be leading me upward out of that valley over the course of about a year: what felt interminable would have its end!
There were several factors which played a part in my feeling as I did; you can hear more about it in this video I shared. To summarize, there were problems with family members outside our home, and there were problems with some of those within our home. I was getting older and was both feeling and seeing the changes. Certain things with our oldest which I had hoped would turn out a certain way didn’t turn out as expected. We had a new baby. Normal life started to feel overwhelming. I wondered why I was here at all.
Can any of you relate to that? Reading through the comments on YouTube, I could see that my experience was not uncommon: other women have gone — or are going through — similar valleys. Many of them truly lifted up my heart with their supportive remarks!
I went on in another video to detail what I believed I had learned from graduating our oldest two children from homeschool (especially our oldest son). There have certainly been various positive outcomes as our oldest children have moved into young adulthood. There are plenty of things I am proud of! Plenty of things I’m pleased with! Honestly, however, there have also been some discouragements along the way. These things aren’t reasons to give up on homeschooling, though. They are part of the growing-up process for some kids — and this process isn’t usually easy for any of us!
Here is what one woman said about entering this stage of having adult children. I thought it was so good I wanted to post it here for you all. Afterwards, I will share some additional thoughts of my own.
Dear sister Jessica,
I have watched you and your family grow for several years. Bless God that he saw fit to entrust you with the stewardship of 10 souls. Rejoice in knowing that you continue to try and show them the way of the Lord. I am 50 years old with two adult children and six grandchildren. I had my children as an unwed teen (they are now 33 and 32). I did not come to the knowledge of the truth of God until I was 38 years old, when my children were already adults. Imagine my heartbreak once I realized the outcome of rearing children who had no knowledge of Jesus Christ. Too much to explain here but the ongoing consequences and influences on my grandchildren (ages 1 – 14 years) are sometimes devastating.
Unlike many mothers, you have given your children a solid foundation in the Lord from which to grow. Again, rejoice in that God found you worthy to steward their souls for at least 18 years. I sometimes feel so desperate for another chance to at least get that part right, but there is no second chance. The time is lost.
The minds and hearts of young children are so precious and pure. They are like sponges taking in all of the morals and behaviors they observe. Sometimes it is hard to reconcile what that begins to look like and play out as they grow into adulthood. Sometimes their failures or mistakes are a reflection of us as parents, but sometimes it truly is an external worldly influence or a deliberate choice the child makes to rebel against their upbringing and foundation. Even as an unbeliever, I tried to instill what I believed to be good morals into my children. How much harder it was to go and tell them as adults that I had failed them and to try and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ! The only thing that brings me comfort now is knowing that His Word will not return void. (God at least gave me the opportunity to plant seeds with my grandchildren).
There is such a delicate balance between motherhood and learning how to let go and navigate crossing the bridge into friendship (and occasional advisor) once they become adults. If your heart is heavy or you now realize you made some mistakes, my best advice is to go to your adult children in humility if the lines of communication are still open. On the other hand, sometimes it is best to be still in silence if a “line in the sand” is being drawn over ungodly or immoral behavior. Whatever the case may be, lean on the Lord to weather this storm.
I will continue to pray for you. ~K
What insightful points! How thankful I am for “K’s” advice.
Now, in order to wrap this up, I’d like to talk a little about what I’ve been learning about raising children to adulthood, in a general sense. I certainly do believe the Bible when it promises: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). However, I think I’m seeing that there are at least a couple things to consider when trying to understand this verse:
- It says “train” up a child. I had thought that teaching was the same thing as training, but I’ve learned that training actually involves a whole spectrum of activities, including discipline, correction, and nurture, to name a few (thanks to Tedd Tripp’s book, Shepherding a Child’s Heart). While I may have done alright in the “teaching” area, I believe I could have done better in some of those other areas. My mistakes in training may have led to some of the problems we later experienced.
- This verse doesn’t promise that there will never be struggles. We as Christians consider ourselves to still be Christians even on the days we mess up. I know I mess up, but even so, I haven’t “departed” from the way of the Lord. Sometimes we give in to temptation — to the temptation to be angry and sin, to be impatient, to complain, etc. So is it any surprise when our children mess up, too? It’s only human to do so. It doesn’t mean we’ve totally failed, and it doesn’t mean this verse isn’t true.
If Adam and Eve, who lived in a perfect Paradise and were taught by God Himself could fall into sin under the influence of Satan’s temptation — well, I guess it’s not so shocking when any of us does so, too. It happens. There can sadly be times of temporary backsliding as we give into various temptations in life. I think that the promise of God that our children “will not depart” from the way we trained them applies, first of all, only if we truly did “train” them (not just teach them). But I also think that it applies even if they struggle, as we all do from time to time. Even though they will be tempted to bend to the way of the world, and may do so for awhile, the way they were trained will eventually win out.
Maybe I don’t understand the issue properly, but this is how I see it at this point. What do you think?
- Do you think I’ve misunderstood this verse?
- What is the correct way to understand it?
- What have you learned from your own experience raising children?
- Is there anything you would add to “K’s” advice?
~Jessica
Thank you for sharing this! By my observation parents find the oldest and youngest kids most challenging to raise. The oldest are the guinea pigs to test your parenting strategy and often are overwhelmed, and then neglected as the younger children come along. Not intentionally, but parents tend to assume their 8-year-old doesn’t need as much supervision and attention anymore, which can sometimes sow seeds of resentment. The youngest kids are also often in danger in a different way. Parents often realize they were “too strict” in the beginning of their parenting journey. They also tend to be better off financially than they were at first. This leads to the younger kids (especially the youngest!) getting spoiled, and having bad behavior not being dealt with, because the parents have seen other children with “difficult phases” grow up to be “just fine”. Also in teaching, the youngest can be at a disadvantage, because if the children are all taught something together as a group, parents don’t want to repeat themselves every few years. So the youngest completely miss out on some of the most foundational Bible lessons, or don’t understand the advanced ones (geared at the majority of kids, who can already understand more), all without the parents realizing this.
Take my observations with a grain of salt, since I’m not a parent myself. Every parent I know makes mistakes. And children still have free will and access to God’s grace of they choose it. That’s not entirely your burden to carry. Just keep watching out for your new set of “older kids”, make sure they get the attention (positive and negative) and the help they need. And remember to not give special treatment to the little ones (letting them do certain things earlier than the older ones got to, being more lenient etc.). Aside from the little ones becoming spoiled and entitled, the older ones are watching with the disapproving feeling of “unfair!”.
Excellent, Erika! Thank you for sharing all those thoughtful observations!
~Jessica
Great post, Jessica.
One thing I thought of some years ago – there’s a difference between a principle and a promise. We tend to interpret things as promises, when they’re really principles. For example, try this one: “If you take care of your wheat fields correctly, then you will get a good wheat crop.” It sounds like a promise, but it’s not – it’s a principle. There are still locusts, and hailstorms, and droughts, and you can still end up with an obliterated wheat crop. The statement is meant as a principle to follow, not an inviolable promise.
(And if it was really meant as a promise, then almost 100% of parents out there are rotten parents not claiming available promises, as nearly all parents of adult children that I know are dealing with at least one wayward child.)
Secondly, I think that the principle taught by a lot of Christian sources is simply wrong – “If you are perfect enough as a parent, then your children will be perfect too.” (I totally believed this before I had children.) Firstly, we as parents cannot be perfect. Period. We’re sinful humans. And we’re tired. 🙂 Secondly, you can’t parent well enough to eliminate original sin in your children, or to take away their free will to commit sin. Wish we could, but we can’t. 🙂
In the end, I think that we can only do our absolute best, and leave the rest to God.
Hopefully this wasn’t too off-topic, and hopefully I’m not repeating things I’ve said in other comments. 🙂
Great points, Diana! This is something I’ve been pondering for years. Your point about the difference between principle and promise really helps make this issue clearer.
~Jessica
Dear Jessica: I’m so sorry that you have had such a terrible year. I do hope that you found someone to talk to about all of these stresses who could be objective and give you some good advice. I’ve had times in my life when there was just too much happening at once, but I fortunately have never felt as hopeless as you at those times. I’ve always had my husband, siblings, and friends as a great support system. It took me a while to learn to ask for help though. I’m significantly older than you are and have an adult child in her late 20’s. My husband and I married later than most and I gave birth to her after a few struggles, at the age of 39. Ironically, when I should have been feeling ‘old’, having a baby and young child made me feel young throughout my 40’s. You ask what people have learned raising children. That’s an excellent question. I only have one child who was about as easy to raise as any child could be. She’s very similar to her father and me – contemplative, loves to do quiet things, enjoys people but knows how to keep herself entertained (She’s very creative so swimming, painting, drawing and playing the piano are her outlets when things get overwhelming.) and is organized and hard-working. She is in my eyes perfect in every way that matters 🙂 Anyway, what have I learned? I’ve learned that my way isn’t the only way of living or thinking. I’ve learned to listen and not respond immediately with my opinion. I’ve learned that I can only change my reaction to someone/something, but not someone else’s actions. Recently, since my daughter is working as a professional in the city, I’ve learned to understand and accept that her life will always be different than my life was at her age because we are living in a different time. Mostly, I’ve learned that raising a strong and independent young person means that I need to still let her know that I’m willing to listen even if I don’t understand the choices she makes that are different from mine. I never want to be the parent who didn’t know what potentially negative thing was going on (I’m thinking an abusive spouse/partner, etc., even though that has never been her reality. That’s a scary situation for me to think about because my own father was an abusive spouse.)and therefore didn’t help. I also want to give credit to the hundreds of students I taught over my 42 years of teaching – They also taught me to not judge, be patient, and listen, listen, listen. You seem like a sincere and kind mom, and when you get to my age I’ll bet you’ll be content with how things work out for you and your children. But I also know how hard things can seem in the moment. Good luck to you, and keep on having hope.
Thank you for sharing those insights, Caroline. Your comment was very helpful!
~Jessica
Dear Jessica,
Thank you for this post. I do like to read you. Our children have been taught and we certainly tried to train them too. They have grown up. The three olders have children themselves, the fourth is expected the first baby, the fifth has long been our burden, but she is doing better and prays God like we do.
I already cited sometime a good verse out of the book to the Hebrews:
“For God is not so unjust as to overlook your work and the love which you showed for his sake in serving the saints, as you still do,” and it continues:
“and we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness in realizing the full assurance of hope until the end”.
With greetings from Marguerite
I always value your input, Marguerite. Thank you!
My LOs are still young enough that I’m not at the “friend/peer” stage. Though I definitely look forward to it. BTW, Kellie told me I’m due closer to, appropriately, Labor Day. And Matthew recently hit 2 big milestones: his 1st birthday & first steps.
Congratulations to Matthew! What an accomplishment!
BTW Jessica: love the new pic. 😀
Aww, thanks, Courtney!