Leslie Leyland Fields - Parenting Is Your Highest Calling: And Eight Other Myths That Trap Us in Worry and Guilt

Parenting
Is Your Highest
Calling

Contents

Myth 1: Having Children Makes You Happy and Fulfilled
Discovering Gods Real Purpose in Giving Us Children

Myth 2: Nurturing Your Children Is Natural and Instinctive
Why Biblical Love Is So Difficult to Live Out

Myth 3: Parenting Is Your Highest Calling
How Pursuing God First Frees Us to Love Our Children More

Myth 4: Good Parenting Leads to Happy Children
Exchanging Shallow Hopes for Gods Deeper Purposes

Myth 5: If You Find Parenting Difficult, You Must Not Be Following the Right Plan
Learning to Rely on God Rather Than Formulas

Myth 6: You Represent Jesus to Your Children
How We Trap Ourselves in a Role We Werent Meant to Play

Myth 7: You Will Always Feel Unconditional Love for Your Children
How Our False Ideas of Love Burden Us with Guilt

Myth 8: Successful Parents Produce Godly Children
The Danger of Making Too Much of Ourselves and Too Little of God

Myth 9: God Approves of Only One Family Design
Why God Is Not Limited by Imperfect Families

To Naphtali, Noah, Isaac, Elisha, Abraham, and Micah

You have, every one, enriched my life beyond measure.

Acknowledgments

As I sit down at the end of this project, I am profoundly grateful. Every piece of writing consumes personal resources, but some require more. This book has required much from my family, especially my husband, Duncan. I am so thankful for his understanding and support offered at so many levels. My children have sacrificed as well and have been remarkably patient with me throughout this three-year-long process. (I promise you homemade desserts again, and the chance for you to beat me at cribbage and rummy!)

My editor Elisa Stanford has been an uncommonly smart and stalwart companion through this entire process, from the initial idea to its final expression. I could not have done this without her. Laura Barker, too, has enriched this book through her wisdom and support. Questa Harper stepped in and lent her quick mind to this project. My agent, Greg Johnson, has been incredibly responsive to needs along the way. Every reader will benefit from their excellent work.

I am hugely indebted, as well, to the many friends and parents all over the country, and especially here in Kodiak, who have shared their family lives and struggles with me. You have inspired, motivated, and taught me. Some have given special encouragement by reading and responding to cover designs and earlier drafts: Debbie Bastian, Joy Ng, Renee Lyons, Suzanne Jensen, Ben and Stephanie, Ann Voskamp, Susan Underwood, my sisters Laurie and Jan, and many others. A special thanks for Beth Fields (for too much to name!). Thank you all for your investment of yourselves and your time!

Most of all, I am grateful to God and the power of his living Word. Attempting to speak truth from his Word is the most exciting and yet the most daunting, fearful task I know of. He has kept me through the most ordinary days of hard work and the most harrowing days of need. He truly has been my ever-present Savior and Sovereign. I am relying on his work even now, that as these pages are turned, his words will accomplish all that he purposes and desires.

Parenting Doesnt Have to Be This Hard

I am going to bed happy tonight. Weve just had a family meeting on our bedall five boys and our daughter sprawled, folded, draped limb to limb across the bedspread. We talked about our upcoming plans to travel for the year, about schoolwork, about the church service the day before. Naphtali, our oldest, will be off to college soon. The boys were cooperative, listening and contributing to the conversation. Our eldest son was showing increasing maturity. The two sons in the middle were getting along better than usual. Abraham and Micah were still the darlings of the family. I managed to ignore the turf war Isaac and Abraham were having at the foot of the bed. We ended with reading a few verses from Acts and with my husband, Duncan, praying the day to a close. Everyone trotted off to bed cheerfully.

I want cameras rolling, recording these moments against all my self-accusations and guilt. I want evidence proving what great parents we are. I feel affirmed, ready to broadcast my love for my children to the world, ready to write a book on how to parent well.

But if I am honest, I cant end here. I have to tell of other moments, like the morning this book began. Everyone was squabbling and ignoring my instructions. In the rush to get all six kids out the door to school, anger and morning sloth collided: accusations, eruptions, tempests filled the air. These were the themes of the weekand of my life at that point.

When everyone was safely away in their own calmer environments, I went for a walk in a dense spruce forest near our home. Failure weighed heavy on my shouldersagain. I had sent everyone off that morning, not with loving words of affirmation, but with words of anger, impatience, and sarcasm. My mind raced through the maze of questions I knew by heart: Why wasnt I a more joyful and loving mother? Why were my children so lacking? Why did I always feel like a failure? And how could I pray honestly about all this to God? How many children had he raised?

Why wasnt I a more joyful and loving mother? Why were my children so lacking? Why did I always feel like a failure?

I knew the rational answers to some of these questions. Raising six childrena daughter and five sonswas my lifes work, and yet it was work that often pushed me beyond my own limits. I could rattle off the challenges in a single breath: I live in a harsh climate (Kodiak, Alaska) with five boys indoors much of the time through long, dark winters. My boys are not bookish, placid, or reserved. My husband travels often, so I am holding down the fort more than either of us ever wanted. And though we had planned for a family of four children, in my forties two more camesurprise children who enriched and complicated already overwhelmed schedules and lives.

Yet for all this, I knew my life circumstances were in some ways ideal. My husband and I are still married after more than thirty years. Duncan and I desire to please God with our lives. We are healthy. We love our schools, our church, our community. So why, after twenty years of parenting, is raising our children still so challenging?

HOW COULD GOD KNOW?

I was not alone in asking these questions. Perhaps these family scenarios sound similar to yours:

Your precious three-year-old wakes up one day and decides he wants to run his own life. He doesnt need you. The two of you, who once shared one body, are now wholly separate.

Youre a homeschooling mother. Youve given your life completely to your children, stepping away from responsibilities at church and work so you

can fully serve your family. You wonder if you will have any other ministry again. Where is the personal fulfillment you expected from this work?

Youre a single parent, trying to support your two children. You have to put your younger child in day care. This was never part of your parenting plan. You ask yourself, How can I raise my kids to be godly adults when Im absent so much?

Your teenage son will barely speak to you. He is angry and distant. You struggle to love himyou hardly even like him right now. But admitting these feelings brings guilt. You thought you would always feel a deep love for him, as you did when he was an infant. What happened?