Pam's Philosophy of Parenting

Celebration of Motherhood

Motherhood serves as one of the greatest forces in this universe.  Is it any wonder that nature is called, ‘Mother’ Nature?  Who else but a mother has the nurturing power to duplicate the best of herself in another human being or cultivate in another the destiny of experiencing God’s purpose in a life to its fullest capacity?

This unique role for a woman is a mystery, an unexplainable phenomenon that brings to life her deepest God-given desires.  It’s a mission, one which defines her very essence, indeed, a high and holy calling.  And it’s a miracle, bringing the greatest delight and at times the greatest pain known to her existence. To be a mother is to forever place her children in each tear duct.  It’s to volunteer for a heart transplant, where her heart will forever live outside her own chest. Being a mother defies the possibility of even capturing its magnitude on a piece of paper such as this.  Yet with great joy, I will try to do so. 

In my role as a mother, I’ve discovered four philosophies of parenting that have worked toward my children’s emergence into healthy adults and citizens.  All of them serve as key factors in successful parenting: teaching by THE BOOK, parenting by partnership, modeling by example, and empowering by words.

Teaching by THE BOOK

In my home the Bible served as the sole influence of every thought and decision I made.  Every household will follow some standard of belief, and the plumb line of authority in my home was the holy inspired Word of God.  In it I found the principles for corrective teaching and training for every circumstance I faced as a mother.  I taught my children to go to God’s Word for the ultimate truth of not only what God had to say about life but what God had to say about them.  I seized every opportunity in using real life situations to teach them a spiritual truth by bringing the Word of God into their circumstance.  I highlighted the difference between “good, better, and God’s best.”   One day my daughter came home from school devastated having not been invited to a slumber party.  Feeling like an outcast, we looked up scriptures defining what God had to say about her, truth that reinforced her identity in Christ rather than her peers. I recall saying, “Sara, it would have been good to have been invited, even better to have gone and bonded with new friends, but it’s God’s best that you learn how to respond to rejection God’s way.”

When my children, Jason and Sara, were two and three years old, I was placed in a new role, not one I desired or initiated: single motherhood.  Every mother feels the urgency to produce well-balanced children, but no one more desperately than a single parent. How well the Bible instructed me during those days when my children were two and three years old: Deuteronomy 6:7 – And you shall teach the Word 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. 

In other words, seize every opportunity to point them to God.  It became my sole intent to teach them to love God, respect their teachers and peers, honor their father who lived at another house, and find their most dependable source of peace in a relationship with their Heavenly Father.  I remember our morning devotionals called “Picture Scripture,” where they would draw stick figures cartoons on cards illustrating biblical stories, songs, or new lessons they had discovered.  The Word of God gave us all great comfort in knowing that in our home God was our protector, sustainer, and life-giving source of peace.  He was not just “a” God up there in the heavenlies; He was “our” God abiding in our midst.

As I look back, I see the faithfulness of God during those five most formative years of my children’s life when I was raising them alone. My survival success in parenting revolved around this comparison: Not having the living water of the Word in my life and home would have been like placing a whale in an environment without the ocean. The truth of God’s Word I placed in their hearts as small children serves as a source of power and foundation in their adult married lives today.

Parenting by Roles - (Knowing the difference between God’s job and my job)

In my children’s lives, they spent the first half of their growing years under the roof of a single mom as the head of the household, and the last half of their lives under the roof of a step father as the head of the household.  Today Rich, my second husband, and I have been married eighteen years and find great joy as we look back and witness the faithfulness of God in our efforts of “growing up” well-adjusted adults.

We adopted a philosophy of grace-based parenting, a style that revolves around empowering the children to make wise choices rather than exerting power through control and manipulation.  Its goal was to create an environment where each child was enabled to become all that God had intended.

I discovered when my children were teenagers that I had a job; they had a job; and God had a job. God’s formula worked well if I did not try to take on His role.  My job was to fall under the leadership of my husband, pray for the household and children, model a life of integrity, lay out clear consequences for disobedience, follow through with consistent and firm natural consequences for willful defiance, extend God’s grace for their failures, and to love love love: incessantly, warmly, extravagantly, and unconditionally.

That was my motherly job: to teach, train, and then trust: trust that my love for them would override times of difficulty and stress.  To parent in this way relieved me from the entrapment of feeling like I was a failure when they made poor choices.  I clearly understood that I had a role: to teach in love by “The Book.” The children had a role: either they could obey and receive privileges, or disobey and receive natural consequences tied to their offense. Living with this philosophy kept me at times from feeling like a failure as a parent, or indicted and responsible for their irrational choices.  It kept me from feeling like it was my responsibility to “fix” them.

“Fixing” was God’s job.  His role was not only to set me free as a parent but to set my children free by learning how to obey Him. God’s job, once I yielded myself to Him, was to work His influence through me that the Holy Spirit would be free to work in my children’s hearts, leading them to want to do right.

I recall the time when my son snuck out of his window in high school.  I was awakened in the wee hours of the morning by the mystery of a mother’s intuition.  I knew he was not in his room.  I drove to the place he was hanging out and simply left a note on his car window that read: MOM-WAS-HERE: 3:45 AM.  I drove home with an array of emotions, got back into bed, and prayed that the natural consequences soon to follow and the leading of God’s Spirit would teach him a lesson.  The next morning he waddled into the kitchen, grieved by his noncompliance to our house rules, only to have his stepfather drive him to school for the next month. 

God’s job is one of fixing, changing and bringing about an inner transformation by His power, a heart change from the inside-out, a new birth in the child’s will to want to live in harmony with the family.

Modeling by Example

Everybody knows toddlers mimic their parents.  They possess an inborn nature to initially pattern their way of life and very speech after their mommy and daddy.  The power of example is not something that has to be taught. It’s caught.   It’s a fact of life, and it’s indeed one of the greatest gifts we can give to our children. Every person seeks to find a hero, someone they highly esteem, hold in high regard as a role model, someone worthy of their adulation and respect.

A modeling mom seeks to be that person. Such a life pursuit has always been my goal. Especially in the single mother years, I was ever present of the responsibility I had to replicate a pattern of God’s gentleness, kindness, patience, and self control.  I recognized that it was from me that they would pattern their own response to life by the way I responded.  Life in those early years didn’t turn out the way I had planned. But it was a divine opportunity for me to show them how to respond to life when a school day didn’t turn out the way they had planned either.  Modeling was my God-given window of opportunity to reproduce for them what it looked like to renew my mind with the good things of life and not the bad.  I remembered the statistic well: “Children do 20% of what you tell them to do and 80% of what you actually do.”  So I developed the mindset to “do” well.

A modeling mom knows it takes effort to replicate a powerful example.   Modeling is an intentional decision to seize moments of disaster and turn them into moments of display: to showcase what it looks like to love others above yourself, to turn dishonorable words into words of honor, to seize inappropriate times of TV viewing into teaching moments.  Opportunities to model are everywhere!  Far too many moms worry about their children’s well being when they should be “worrying” about the fact that they are being watched continuously!  Moms need to take the tablets of love on their hearts and transfer it to their children’s hearts by the remembrance of the phenomenon called “Influence” – that invisible inducing of change without the use of words. 

A modeling mom never ceases in thinking of ways to live out her faith.  These were a few of my objectives: Teach the children to give their lives away by you asking people without a local family to sit at your Thanksgiving table.  Teach the children to read God’s Word but writing a Bible study yourself.  Teach the children to give to the poor by volunteering over the holidays at the City Rescue Mission.  Teach the children to practice the presence of God by providing them a portrait of God’s enabling work through you. 

And as a mom whose children are grown and out from under the roof, I continue to model. Teach your married children to love their spouses by sending anniversary cards expressing your celebration of their union.  Teach them to keep each other first by inviting them over for a candlelight dinner. Your job as a teacher is never over: so teach teach teach! Only the expanse of heaven contains the limitless opportunities before every mother to model moment-by-moment what’s honest, just, pure, lovely, and good report to her family.

Empowering by Words

Charles Swindoll said it well, “Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children.”  I pray my children today have a rich bank account overflowing with words of affirmation and praise I have spoken over them and to them.

I’m certain my children have already forgotten in the years past all the Christmas gift trinkets I gave to them, the birthday bicycles, the Easter chocolate crosses, and all the yummy candy corns and pumpkins in their fall baskets.  But what they have not forgotten are the ways I have practiced the power of my words on their behalf.  They stand as monuments of empowerment that continue to spur them on to greatness.  To my children and their spouses, I have engaged in these conversations with them:

  • Sara, you are the most magnificent gift to me.  Your loving passion for your other siblings and family members blesses us all by the unique way you…
  • Jason, you are so talented and have such a sensitive heart.  You bring great delight to my life because of the way you…
  • Amber, you have become such an incredible adult woman.  You offer the world the unique blessings of…
  • Ryan, I admire that you are so amazingly gentle hearted and always look for the best in everyone.  That’s rare because…
  • Beth, I marvel at you as a Doctor of Education.  You’re so respected and such a great educator and mother by the way you…
  • Jess, you are a perfect fit for my daughter, so smart, funny, and friendly.  You light up my life when you walk into the room because…
  • April, you’re the answer to my life-long prayers for a wonderful mate for my son.  You bless my socks off by your genuine godly spirit and…
  • Jeremy, you’re such a hard worker and a man of integrity.  We are thankful for you as the newest member of our family because…
  • And by the way, though this essay is about “children,” your number one responsibility as a mother is to speak words of praise about their father.  So to Rich, my current husband of eighteen years, and to Steve, my children’s father, I express
    • Steve, thank you for being there for Jason and Sara.  They admire many wonderful qualities about you.  They respect you because…
    • Rich, you continue to be the sustaining strong arm of patience, kindness, and generosity to all of us.  You are greatly loved by us all because…

We build faith and feed our children’s hearts by our continued sincere efforts in speaking out loud the exclusive gifts of godly character traits we see in them.  It’s important for your children and spouses to hear what makes them distinctive and one of a kind in this world. God gave them exceptional personalities and gifts.  Never put them in a “cookie cutter” mold where they are to look and behave like the other children. Celebrate their uniqueness.  Empower them to become all that God is in the process of developing.  Be a cheerleader not a cheerbeater. They are a masterpiece from God their Creator.  It is your job as a mother to continually be on the lookout for ways to point out the positive, not the negative, and express to them why they are the best child, best friend, best employee, and in later years: the best mate or the best parent.

Take intentional steps to tattoo these biblical motherly commands on your heart as ‘family life’ mission statements:

  • As long as it is today, I will encourage others day after day.  Hebrews 3:13
  • Therefore, I will consider how to stimulate others to love and good deeds.  Hebrews 11:24
  • I will do nothing from selfishness, or empty conceit, but with humility of mind I will regard others as more important than myself.   Philippians 2:3
  • And beyond all these thing, I will put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Colossians 3:14

Conclusion

In closing, I find myself understanding more clearly the emotions of Mary, the mother of Jesus, as she reflected on her son and what position her child held in her life:  But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. (Luke 2:19)  That’s the best definition I can express for a mother: a woman that finds stupendous delight in the musings of her heart as she considers the journey, the blessings, and the gift of her beloved children.

How well Hodding Carter summarized successful parenting: There are two lasting bequests we can give to our children.  One is roots and the other wings.  But I think there’s two more. I can give to my grandchildren, Karsen and Reed, a legacy of family, warmth, and family traditions.  It can become my sincerest ambition to pass along to these little tots the “best” of what I have learned in my plight as a mother in keeping God first in my life.  But I can invest in another group, as well: other mothers.  Stored up in various compartments of my heart remains “Motherly Nuggets,” truths waiting to be shared, lessons of hope from God’s Word that promise to empower other mothers’ journeys.  What a joy to pass along to them a reminder of the most privileged role they carry: Motherhood!

For the rest of my days, may my life as a mother continue to bring glory to God. And may my children and their spouses respond with great joy to the legacy statement I pass along to them:

Now may the God of peace equip you in very good thing to do His will.  Hebrews 13:21