To Today’s School Age Parent: Today’s Feeling ≠ Wisdom
Entire series: {PART 1} {PART 2} {PART 3} {PART 4} {PART 5} {PART 6} {PART 7}
This post begins a short series written “To Today’s School Age Parent.” I’ve been there myself as a dad of four, but it’s been a decade since I’ve been in the thick of it from the parent chair. As an ‘in the trenches’ school guy every day of the year, though, I’m very much still in that difficult game.
I don’t envy you making decisions as today’s parents. I love parenting – as stretchingly hard as it is – but today’s culture gives you less and less while challenging you more and more. I would encourage you, and all the more as the Day approaches, to find God’s provision in the midst of the storm. James 1:5 says “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.”
That’s what I hope to tap into in this short series. Psalm 111:10 says “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Think of “fear” as reverence and humility in the presence of God. And think of the presence of God as all the time, all of life, because that’s where we and our children truly live.
So, to live wise, to decide skillfully as parents, we start with godly fear. My key thought today is where that means we don’t start.
We don’t parent or live based on today’s feeling, whatever it is, good or bad, happy or sad. This isn’t to say that feelings don’t matter, or that they’re bad. But the absolute, unavoidable, and very life-altering truth is that feelings are fickle and built on sand. They can’t steer a true course, and they can’t be the foundation of a strong life or character.
Jeremiah 17:9 says “the heart is deceitful above all things.” This also doesn’t mean feelings are bad. One commentator’s note describes “deceitful” here to mean “tortuous, uneven, and crooked like a bad road.”
This also doesn’t mean the human mind, logic, reasoning is the seat of virtue and guidance for life. Mr. Spock’S computers don’t chart a true course for us, either. The contrast is not with the human mind and heart, but with living in light of God’s presence and not my control and decision-making.
So, what’s that like in practice? I title it “Today’s Feeling ≠ Wisdom.” We don’t get wise choices or perspective from feelings.
Yet our culture feeds us that message as a resounding gong and a clanging cymbal. All day, every day “messages” through “media” tap into our feelings and rev them up 1000%. Sometimes when we’re relatively peaceful and observing it, we feel kind of sick to our stomachs. When we join in the fervor, we often then feel okay and part of the ‘team.’ The word comes to us loud and clear. Feel it! Say it! Do it! And do it mad, or lustily, or fearfully! Don’t you feel it, too?!
Think how those messages hit our hearts right where we live. They nudge us and turbocharge us to do what we feel like doing anyway.
Imagine with me (and we don’t have to imagine very strongly because we lived it just yesterday or this morning or just a minute ago) a day where I’m stressed and feeling pushed. Little is going my way in the day to day of normal life. Things in the country and the world have me on edge. Money is tight; I’ve got some pain; and stuff at the office is pretty uncertain and unsettled. I’ve had better days and sometimes I keep that in my perspective, but today I feel “TODAY!”
My child, to be honest, whines for more screen time. Do I get mad at the whining? Do I give in because it feels easier to have some peace and quiet? Do I say no because I feel another parent’s judgment about my laxity on media use?
The point is not that there’s some obviously correct answer. The point is that my feelings offer little as a guide. Yet they often determine what I do.
My child comes home from school and tells me how harsh and unreasonable the teacher was when asked a question about the math my child doesn’t understand. I felt the teacher wasn’t very warm or affirming when we met to start the year. I felt very frustrated about two nights per week for the last month when trying to help my child with her math homework. I felt rebuffed earlier today when I reached out with a kindness to someone and they just didn’t seem to care much about it. I feel like writing that teacher to give her a piece of my mind.
The point is not that teachers are always right or patient or caring or responsive. The point is not that these things don’t matter that much – they do. The point is certainly not that I should always dismiss (or always agree with) my child’s feelings or perspectives. [After all, my child thought I was uncaring and unresponsive about the request for more ice cream last night, but also thought I was impatient and brusque last week when I brushed off his request for a game of catch – and I was, and he was rightly hurt just to be ignored.]
Feelings are real. Feelings are important. Feelings should be acknowledged. But feelings rarely give complete or reliable answers.
The value of relationships with my child and with my child’s teacher are both important, if not equally so. Respect for authority matters, not mostly to the teacher’s feelings but to my child’s character. It can be uncomfortable and inconvenient to ask a question about understanding when I’m hot and bothered or when I’m just busy and don’t want to think about math homework.
Fear of the Lord brings me to seek understanding in His Word and by His Spirit in prayer. My feelings get a guide and a check and an influence for growth as I seek wisdom to guide in the big decisions and in the day to day.
My environment and my heart will not tell me that unprompted and unchallenged. I’ll be encouraged to go with my gut when that gut has little diet of divine direction.
It can seem pretty out of step with the world today to build my decision-making on a foundation of revealed truth and relationship with God. It is out of step with the world and finds power in just that disconnect.
Next week, I’ll consider another point about parenting a school age child in today’s culture: What is the value of happiness?