The Shame of Parental Challenges

At church this past Sunday, one of our members courageously spoke of his struggle with Internet pornography, and one of the things he correctly noted was that we need to be able to speak honestly an openly about our struggles with sin and temptations without a pressure to put on the phony face of a Christian who has their life neatly in place.  

Pornography is one area, and I think another area is similarly stigmatized surrounds family problems, including the difficulty in raising children.  

A recent New York Times article reported that there are older children who are being abandoned under a law in Nebraska that was intended to provide safe haven to parents who felt they couldn't care for infants.  I wonder how much of this is a result of parents not crying out for help earlier on in a child's life when patterns of rebellion and misbehavior start to emerge. Before soon, a kid that you used to be able to influence, reason with, and discipline is a teenager who is bigger than you, semi-independent, and has no qualms about throwing you and your wife through a wall or burning the house down.

Part of the reason why I suspect that this happens is because there's a certain degree of shame over parental challenges as it relates to the raising of children.  As a father of two young children, I can testify that there are few things as embarrassing as having a child throw a tantrum in front of all your friends to see.  The judgment of other people is almost palpable: "Tsk tsk... it's a shame they can't control their child.  They ought to [insert self-righteous advice here].  What terrible parents; what terrible people."

The reality is parenting is really hard.  If you have no children and you think otherwise, you have no idea what I'm talking about.  I'll restate it so I can emphasize my intentional harshness - you have no idea what you're talking about.  Even people who have children who think it's easy are giving way too much credit to themselves to the point of being delusional.  

Look, I believe that there are principles to good parenting.  I respect what people like Paul Tripp and James Dobson have to say.  But there's no paint-by-numbers formula that punches out faithful and well-behaved kids.  I am certain that there are parents that do everything "right" and the kid still rebels.  I am also certain that there are parents who make many parenting mistakes that are blessed with well-adjusted kids.  The fact that kids who are well behaved due to "behavior-manipulation" as opposed to a true understanding of grace and faithful obedience is a whole other ball of wax I won't even tackle now.

The reality is that while parents have a duty to parent responsibly, the outcomes are God's work.  But the failure to acknowledge this leads to judgment, leading to a stigma to admitting your kid is having behavior problems, which I believe leads to situations like we're seeing in Nebraska.

Anyway, flights from Newark to Omaha are how much today?