David E. Clarke - Parenting Is Hard and Then You Die: A Fun but Honest Look at Raising Kids of All Ages Right

Although this book will make you laugh over and over, its not parenting light. Its filled with truth that will transform your home for good. I love that its intensely practical. You get the feeling this father-and-son writing team has spent time observing your children (how else would they know so much!). Let this dynamic duo help turn your greatest frustrations in parenting into your greatest victories.

ARLENE PELLICANE

Speaker and author of Parents Rising: 8 Strategies for Raising Kids Who Love God, Respect Authority, and Value Whats Right

If you really love your kids, take the time to read this book. Parenting Is Hard and Then You Die is a great combination of humor and Bible-based wisdom. Dr. Clarkes personal approach and creative strategies will help you raise healthy kids who love you and love the Lord.

DAVID AND CLAUDIA ARP

Cofounders of Marriage Alive and authors of 10 Great Dates

In David Clarkes Parenting Is Hard and Then You Die, parents will find practical guidelines and insights that will change parenting from an ordeal to be endured to an enriching experience. This book is full of humor, biblical applications, and just plain common sense.

HAROLD J. SALA, PH.D.

Author and founder of Guidelines International

Parenting Is Hard and Then You Die is a fun, fun bookyoull laugh hilariously at your own life. David Clarke is insightful, practical, and very vulnerable, as well as funny.

JIM CONWAY, PH.D.

President, Midlife Dimensions, and author of Men in Midlife Crisis

Parenting Is Hard and Then You Die: A Fun but Honest Look at Raising Kids of All Ages Right

2019 David E. Clarke. All rights reserved.

A Focus on the Family book published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188

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ISBN 978-1-58997-976-5

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To the four greatest kids in the world:

Emily

Leeann

Nancy

William

Mom and I love you to infinity and are very proud of you.

Gifts from Godor Instruments of Slow Torture?

T HERE IS ONE QUESTION that has haunted parents for centuries. Here it is: Are children gifts from Godor instruments of slow torture? Actually, they are both. Parenting has moments of wonder, excitement, and enrichment... broken up by long stretches of exasperation, total chaos, and suffering.

As you begin parenthood with a newborn baby, you just want this little person to survive. You sneak into the nursery every thirty minutes to make sure the little thing is still breathing. You meet every need of this small, helpless creature.

When your child hits the twos and threes and is systematically destroying your homepiece by broken pieceyou begin to wonder if you will survive.

When your child moves into middle school and becomes a teenager, you know youre not going to make it. You realize with horror that the roles are reversed. You are now a small, helpless creature at the mercy of a far superior force: hormones.

If you and your ungrateful, hostile, and attitude-challenged teenager survive through high school, two things happen. One, your health is broken. Two, you must now spend your retirement savings on college. Talk about a gamble! All that money for a kid youre not even sure is going to turn out well.

With your health broken and your money spent, you must spend your declining years praying that one of your kids will have pity on you and take care of you. Thats the main reason Sandy and I had four kids. We figure at least one of them will look after us when were in our wheelchair years.

So far, it doesnt look too positive. In a recent conversation with our feisty third daughter, Nancy, the topic of what to do with an aging mom and dad came up. Nancy, deadpan, looked me in the eye and said, Simple solution. Im going to put you in a home. And I dont think she was kidding!

This brief overview of the parenting process is tongue-in-cheek. But there is truth to it, isnt there? Parenting is hard. Very, very hard. Just about impossible, really.

If you are raising a child, you are in a war. A war on many fronts.

As my overview of the parenting process revealed, you are in a war with your own kids! Dont get me wrong... children are blessings from God. Theyre fun and endlessly entertaining. They enrich us. They give life new meaning. They are the future.

But kids are also selfish, fiendishly inventive, and naturally gravitate to behaviors that are bad for them. Theyll fight you at every turn, test your patience to its limit, and may break your heart with poor decisions.

Its common to fight with your spouse over how to raise your children. You have different family backgrounds, different personalities, different parenting styles, different standards of behavior, and different ideas of discipline.

If your spouse becomes your ex-spouse, the war over how to raise your children really heats up. Now there are two different homes with two different sets of rules. If you remarry, these new spouses bring in their own ideas about parenting.

To make the war even more intense, all the leftover pain of the divorce transfers into the parenting process.

Other relativesgrandparents, uncles, aunts, cousinscan also interfere with your ability to raise your children in a consistent, godly way.

Satan is hard at work every hour of every day trying to damage your children. Hes good at what he does. Very good. Look at how successful Satan has been:

• profanity and nudity on television
• the explosion of accessible pornography on the internet
• social media replacing real communication and real relationships
• the decriminalization of harmful drugs
• homosexual marriage legalized
• bisexuality approved
• transgender individuals applauded
• sex outside marriage normalized and promoted