Father Knows Best

  I’m on vacation this week, visiting family.  Someone pulled out the old home movies and there we are, in all our childish, mid-century modern glory.  Grainy-filmed, year-after-year of tow-headed exclamations, smiles, and laughter as we pull dolls, robots, skates, out of brightly papered boxes.  Birthdays and Christmases, adults and children dressed in our very best, Grandparents clapping and exulting with us at each gift, Uncle mugging for the camera, older cousins helping us put together new toys, pushing us on shiny trikes, buffet tables covered with food and treats.

  Yes, we had a Leave It To Beaver childhood. Mom was June, Dad was Father, and while it wasn’t perfect, neither was it fake, as many in today’s world would want you to believe. It was real, and it was very good. Reflecting on those films and those years with my other three siblings, though, reveals some interesting differences in how we think about our childhoods. Each of us had a unique response to the way we were raised as we started to grow up.

  One of us found the world my parents created for us constricting, dutifully played the expected role, and as soon as possible left to create a very different life for their self and their family. One of us loved, and another enjoyed, the life in which we were raised, and both remember it in an idyllic, star filtered kind of way. These two have spent years attempting to recreate their childhoods with their own spouses and children, with varied levels of success. One of us just found it all somewhat puzzling, and increasingly touched down for only brief visits in between spending as much time as possible with friends.

  I can’t help but think about my own children and how they will remember the life Sean and I have given them. Parents can drive themselves crazy thinking about this sort of thing.  My sibs and I are prime examples of the truth that each of our personalities impacts our perceptions and reactions in a way that no parent can predict or plan for. We parents try to do our best, with the understanding that what is good for one child may not be what is right for the next. It could be that good parenting also means the realization that what was best for us, may not be what is best for our children – that the world they live in calls for a different approach.

  This is my question – can we, blinded by our past, see each of our children as the unique, God-works of art they are becoming? Parenting is an impossible privilege. God does not need us to help Him fashion our children – yet, He gives us the honor to do so.

  Participating in each other’s development – in the lives of our children, siblings, friends, other believers – is referred to in the Bible as a mystery, and it is. The wisdom to accomplish it is beyond us…but with God, all things are possible. That’s how we do it, with God. He in us, us in Him. Father knows best.