Cindy Wang Brandt - Parenting forward : how to raise children with justice, mercy, and kindness

Parenting Forward

How to Raise Children with
Justice, Mercy, and Kindness

Cindy Wang Brandt

WILLIAM B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY

GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

4035 Park East Court SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

www.eerdmans.com

2019 Cindy Wang Brandt

All rights reserved

Published 2019

25242322212019 1234567

ISBN 978-0-8028-7603-4

eISBN 978-1-4674-5251-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

Contents

As an author who writes about faith and justice, I am often asked during Q&A sessions how I plan to raise my kids to be good neighbors in an increasingly global neighborhood. For years I responded with long, considered answers, invoking everyone from Desmond Tutu to Mr. Rogers, citing Scripture, parenting philosophies, and the latest sociological studies as though I were an expert.

And then I actually had kids.

Thats when, as so often happens, the reality of parenting came barreling through all my grand ideals about parenting, and suddenly I found myselfan accomplished career woman who doesnt think twice about speaking to audiences of thousandssitting in the car sobbing after simply touring a preschool. I was totally and completely out of my depth. I knew how I didnt want to raise my two kids, but I wasnt sure how I did want to raise them.

Enter Cindy Wang Brandt.

Cindy is like that friend with an encyclopedic mind and an oversized address book. She doesnt know all the answers (who does when it comes to parenting?), but she knows someone else who has been through something similar, or she knows about a book that addresses this very issue, or she knows just the right tea and playlist for calming you down. Most importantly, she knows when to shut up, pull up a chair, and just listen.

Like so many others, I met Cindy through an online forum she curates for parents who want to raise their kids unfundamentalistthat is, without the fear, shame, and religion-based manipulation many Christian parents knew growing up. Forums like these can be difficult to manage, especially when they swell to many thousands of members as Cindys has, but Cindy knows exactly how to spark, guide, and wrap up a conversation without being heavy-handed about it. She has a gift for turning these little corners of the Internet into virtual living rooms where people feel safe talking about their questions, their fears, their failures, and their hopes. Few endeavors trigger more insecurity than parenting, but Cindy sets the kind of tone that gives people permission to be honest, to vent, and to get help. Ive learned so much from the collective wisdom of these groups through the years, and from Cindy specifically, Im not sure I could ever calculate their impact on my life and on the lives of my kids.

This is why a book by Cindy is such a welcome treasure. In Parenting Forward the reader is treated to a robust and accessible guide to breaking the cycle of authoritarian, fear-based parenting in favor of a paradigm that pursues and celebrates equality, autonomy, and fully embodied health and wholeness, one tiny act of love at a time, and moving on to the next small, right thing. In the pages ahead, you will encounter the Cindy whose mind is like a sponge, soaking in the wisdom of scientists, philosophers, and poets, and also the Cindy who is still figuring things out herself, modeling the sort of humility and openness for which she advocates in her own life as a parent, teacher, and friend. I recommend reading with a highlighter at the ready and a tissue box handy.

Much has been written in recent years about the benefits and drawbacks of our hyperconnected world. Certainly, there are days when I need to unplug. But of the many gifts my Internet connection has provided, my friendship with Cindy has to be one of the most valuable. She has made me a better parent, a better Christian, and a better citizen of the world. Theres not a doubt in my mind she will do the same for you.

Rachel Held Evans
author of Searching for Sunday and Inspired

I really love my job.

Shir, age 5

Dishes are an underdiscussed topic in parenting books. While others focus on children (not sure why that is), I feel like dishes deserve much more attention simply because of the amount of space they occupy in family life.

This morning, my child brought out six cups from his room. Six. If Ive done nothing else right in parenting, I can be certain of this: I do a damn good job of hydrating my children. Nightly, I am overwhelmed by the enormous task before me as used plates and serving dishes await on the dinner table while piles of dirtied pots and pans and kitchen gadgets overflow the sink. It feels like an impossible job until its done. Every Single Night. And how do I do it? I always start with the smallest dish, the one little measuring cup or the small sauce bowl. I scrub it, rinse it, place it on the drying rack, and move on to the next small thing.

Our world today feels like the disastrous kitchen after dinner, with messes, stains, and unknown substances caked on walls. As much as I am a progressive, believing the world improves human life over time, its undeniable that we are facing some of the most severe crises history has ever seen. Our warming earth threatens us with record-breaking hurricanes, melting ice caps, and the annihilation of species. Social media gives us constant access to the pulse of societal ills, and we collectively feel the throbbing, rapid-fire beat of communities stressed from violence, strife, and tragedies. The news cycle relentlessly vies for our attention, mixing feelings of outrage and despair with no end or escape. Most of us react with instinctive fight-or-flight responses: either resisting every evil and finding ourselves in burnout, or succumbing to paralysis.

But there is another way. Overwhelmed with the bigness of the worlds problems, we can start small. The small measuring cup, the small bowl, the smallest humans. The activists and celebrities are not the ones who effect change in the world. Or rather, I should say, they do it by exerting wide influence on all the ordinary people who are creating real change in their homes, around their dinner tables with their families.

This is how we build a better world: doing one tiny act of love at a time and moving on to the next small, right thing. Bit by bit, we can get the impossible job done by homing in on the small things with the small people.

Nelson Mandela famously said, There can be no keener revelation of a societys soul than the way in which it treats its children. The children of our world form a window through which we find both the diagnosis and the cure for our sickness. They are first to feel the impacts of our various devastations. The ecological crisis, rampant consumerism and income inequality, violence and war disproportionately affect the littlest ones. According to UNICEF, nearly half of the worlds extreme global poor are children, deprived of basic human rights such as nutrition, health, water, education, or shelter. And yet only half of the countries in the world even gather child poverty data. When it comes to the world of development and humanitarian aid, it seems the old adage Children are to be seen and not heard appliestheir cries for basic human dignity are largely ignored.

Naomi Klein, a world-renowned writer and activist on the issue of climate change, calls the current ecological crisis intergenerational theft, robbing the next generation of a diversity of wildlife species, the wonder of the Great Barrier Reef, and a peaceful life free from the devastation of natural disasters as a direct consequence of a warming earth. Who bears the brunt of our poor stewardship? Children. We consume, they pay the debtit is a grand theft of the most egregious kind.