The Dangers of Trusting In Parenting Formulas

January 1, 2003
Michael Evans
  

Every Christian father I know wants to be a better one.   Every Christian father I know wants to “do better” than the previous generation.

Every Christian father I know would (if he could) move heaven and earth to assure that his children walk in joyful obedience to God all the days of their lives.

This is precisely why I muse today, at the beginning of this new year, on the potential dangers of parenting formulas. 

Formulas are what make computer programs run rightly.  Correct application of formulas is what keeps gasoline from exploding   each time you start your vehicle, and bridges from collapsing when you drive on them.

Formula is what babies, whose mothers won’t, or are unable to nurse, feed their babies.  We all know that formula is a distant second to the perfect nutrients of a mother’s milk.   

Formulas are helpful, yea even necessary in the world in which we live.  I admit: Creative plane building by someone who knows nothing of  geometry, calculus, physics and aerodynamics scares me.

But formulas shine most brightly in the areas of science and technology, not in child rearing.  Formulas are for building bridges, not raising Christian warriors and princesses.

Formulas are, by definition, wooden and inflexible.  In their proper place they are life savers.  Applied   inappropriately  they become life killers. 

In the area of parenting, formulas do not sufficiently account for the undeniable differences in personalities… of individual human beings created in the image of our amazingly creative and artistic God.

Let me see if I can illustrate this for you with my own family.

Last week my four-year-old daughter Elisabeth came bounding down the stairs with an impish grin on her face and green slime around her nose.

Karla inquired as to its origin (the slime, not the smile).  Elisabeth said, “It’s from a green tic-tac.”  Karla asked, “What happened to the tic-tac?” 

Elisabeth replied, “It was in my nose.”  “How did it get there? Did you put it there?”  “No.  It jumped there.”  “It jumped there?” “Yes, it jumped there.”

“How did you get it out?” Karla asked.  “I blew it out with a kleenex.”

Contrast this creative and artistic four-year-old with our realist ten-year-old son, who lives in the world of the concrete.  This young man would never think of suggesting that tic-tacs could do things like jump into a person’s nose.

Ten years from now it wouldn’t surprise me if he led a symposium for scientists with the subject title, “Why it is scientifically implausible that green tic-tacs can jump.”

I’m sure Elisabeth would be in attendance, sitting near the front… perhaps drawing pictures of her imaginary friends on the program… which she has cut into a set of paper dolls.

Let me be a mind reader for a moment.  My guess is that some of you have already assessed the situation I just described. 

And, rather than laughing hysterically as we did when the green tic-tac incident transpired, you not only did not laugh but you have already carefully documented each of the very serious concerns that we, as parents, should have regarding our daughter’s truthfulness.

After all, tic-tacs don’t jump do they? And so perhaps some of you have already plugged this data into the “formula machine” and are eager to tell me what I should do.

Now, if you only knew my e-mail address you could send me some unsolicited advice! 

If this is you…lighten up!  Go outside and take 10 deep breaths of January air into your lungs, through your nose.  Check your pulse to make sure you’re alive.  Kiss your wife.  Hug your kids.  Watch the Packers…oops I guess they’re done for the year. 

Take a good long look in a mirror and ask yourself the question, “Does my life emanate life or law? Responsible freedom or slavish bondage?  Flexible application of timeless biblical truth or lifeless legalism?”

Better yet, ask your wife…or close friend, or pastor, or children, or all of the above.  January’s are good occasions for these kinds of potentially painful self-examinations.

Before I lay out some specific biblical cautions against  parenting formulas let me just say that every single parenting formula I have ever seen (or used in some way) has some helpful insights and advice.  Yes, even secular materials occasionally stumble unwittingly upon God’s truth. (All truth is God’s truth anyway.)

My beef is not with formulas, per se, but rather with the attitude that suggests that one method has a corner on the truth of biblical parenting. 

Truth is, even apart from the fact that every human being who has designed parenting formulas is a sinner, every individual who would apply even the best materials is likely to do so in a way which demonstrates their own sinfulness.

I present to you now three reasons not to put your trust in parenting formulas.

First, formulas promote pride.  But only if they appear to work.  They tend to make us think more highly of ourselves than we ought. 

James said that God “opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6).  Peter instructs believers, “…clothe yourselves with humility toward one another.”

Second, formulas stimulate  self-reliance.  Psalm 147:10 says that God “…does not delight in the strength of the horse; He does not take pleasure in the legs of a man.  The Lord favors those who fear Him, those who wait for His lovingkindness.”

God does not delight in human devices or man made creeds or formulas, for none is perfect.

And the moment we think we’ve got it all figured out is the moment our fear of God wanes.  It is the same moment that we cease waiting for His lovingkindness.

The moment we trust in a formula is the moment our moment by moment dependence upon Christ wanes.  My friends, let’s not let it happen to us!

Third, formulas tend to dampen diligence.    If only parenting were a matter of putting all the right information in and the result being that all the right stuff comes out there would no longer be any need for the Cross…no need for God the Father…no need for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit which intercedes for us in our weaknesses (presumably also in the area of parenting) “with groanings too deep for words” (Rom. 8:26-27).

Consider the words of God through Moses in Deuteronomy Ch. 6 (perhaps the closest example of a biblical parenting formula).

Even here in verses 6-8 parents, particularly fathers, are commanded to do this: “You shall teach them (the words of God) diligently to your sons, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up…”

God never intended the Israelites to trust in formulas but rather to diligently and patiently teach, over the long haul, the whole counsel of God’s revelation to man.

Anything that in any way lessens this passion and diligence is a wicked enemy that awaits in the shadows to knife you when you’re gazing at the stars or taking pride in your children.

So I say to you brothers: Be aware of the limitations of formulas.  Beware of the pride and self-reliance, and diligence-dampening which they tend to breed.

The best thing in the world that a father can do for his children is to love God with all his heart.  I don’t know who first said this, but I believe it’s true.  The best we can do is not to follow some man-made formula but to love God and have our hope firmly squared on Him alone.

As the great hymn goes, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.  On Christ the solid Rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand, all other ground is sinking sand” (Verse 1 The Solid Rock).

This goes for parenting as well.  So as we begin this new year of parenting may we do so with a fresh, grace-filled, hope-heaping dose of Reality. 

And whatever burdens you are bearing now, or will bear in this new year with regard to parenting may you always remember that God delights in those who fear His Name and cling to Him as if their family’s well-being depends upon it.  Believe it.  It’s true.