Tuesday Thoughts: The Most Important Job in the World

"Being a mom is the most important job in the world." - Every Christian Mom Website

"Children are a reason to get up in the morning." - Robin Simon

In some ways, this post could be a follow up to my last one on happiness. I'm still mulling over Jennifer Senior's excellent book, All Joy and No Fun, an examination of modern-day parenting from a variety of disciplines.

This post also comes out of something I'm kind of tired of hearing. "Your first job is to be a mom." Or, "Being a mom is the most important thing you can do with your life." Or, "Nothing is more important than taking care of those children!"

To all (5) of you faithful readers, you may already be prepared to disagree with me, but give me a chance. Wait until the end before you slam down your laptop or jab your finger at the "home" button in anger at the outrageous words you are about to read!

Earning their keep!

In her book, Jennifer Senior chronicles the history of American views of childhood, specifically highlighting the change that happened when child labor was outlawed, mostly in the early 1900s. At that point, children stopped working to help support their families, and instead the focus shifted more towards their education. Not to say that children didn't go to school before that or that they stopped working after that point, but that marked the beginning of a new era for children. Children started putting their time and energy into doing work that did not directly benefit their families. Of course, one could argue that a good education would benefit their families in the long run, but they were no longer contributing labor or income to the family in the present. As Viviana Zelizer put it, over time, children became "economically worthless but emotionally priceless." Furthermore, parents moved from seeing children as their "employees" to seeing them as their "employers." Parents (more specifically moms) became their children's chauffeurs, cooks, maids, secretaries, and social planners. There is a mentality that says, "I will do whatever I can, no matter what it costs me, if it is what is best for my child."

I mean, I get that. My kids are great. They're super cute. I want to do everything I can to give them all the advantages I can as they grow up and learn how to live in a hard world.

But the problem is that I'm not so sure what is truly advantageous to my kids. Is it best if they know that my world revolves around them? Around their growth and development, care and consideration?

Who wouldn't want to do everything in
 the world for this sweet kid?

I was talking to a good friend last week who shared that her daughter left home at 17 to attend college. She struggled to find a place all through her high school years, and both mother and daughter finally just decided it was time to move on. She said, "At a time when parents are holding on more tightly than ever to their kids, I was sending mine out into the world. It was a little scary!"

I've worked at a few different educational institutions, and I've encountered overprotective parents of kids from age 14 to age 35. We moms are taking our job seriously!

As my friend and I talked, we were both worried about our kids. If we treat them the same as all their friends' parents, we worry that they will grow up with some of the same character traits that people sometimes criticize in young people: an ever-increasing sense of entitlement, a lack of work ethic, etc. (Old people always criticize young people. There's nothing new in that!) But, on the other hand, if we treat them differently, we worry that they will be outcasts, the weird kid, etc.

I was discouraged about the prospects for my children's futures, but then I encountered these words from Psalm 106:35-37:

"They mingled with the nations
   and adopted their customs.
They worshiped their idols,
   which became a snare to them.
They sacrificed their sons
   and their daughters to demons."

That's when it hit me. By obsessing over good parenting and bad parenting and how to give my kids the best advantages, I was worshiping the idols of our culture, and at risk of sacrificing them to the demons of popular culture that will ultimately destroy them.

The most important job I have is, in fact, not being a mom; it is being a faithful follower of God!

Honestly, I can't emphasize that enough. Especially to those of you who are moms, I wish we could all sit down together and talk about what that means. For like hours. Or at least for the amount of time that I've spent reading articles on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, etc. about how to be a good parent. What can I say? I'm a good student; I want to learn from the experts!

But all too often, the "experts" have mingled with the nations and adopted their customs. The experts have accepted a paradigm for raising children that accepts that the care of our children is absolutely the most important thing we can do. But it's not!*

Well, I'm still trying to figure out what it really means to be a godly mom, raising godly kids, but I want to end by thanking my mom. To this day, my mom still quite often gives up video games for Lent. That probably encapsulates her pretty well. Most moms never played video games. Or gave them up when parenting became their most important job. But I still remembering my mom playing The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "text adventure game" (which according to Wikipedia was released in 1984 for the Commodore 64 and Apple II) and staying up way too late to try to save poor Arthur Dent. She probably sees that as a useless waste of time, but as a kid, I saw that moms could do cool stuff, like beat video games. Moms didn't just have to cook and clean all the time.

I don't always know what it means to be a good mom, but I am relieved to know that ignoring my kids while I write a sermon or even while I sit and play a video game might not be the worst thing I can do for them. And my kids might be the weird kids whose mom doesn't pack a bento box for their lunch or shell out cash for an endless number of fundraisers. But I'd much rather they be the weird kids than to sacrifice them to the demons of popular culture.

Happily playing on her own

*If you really want a perspective that flies in the face of popular culture check out the text of the martyr Perpetua who was nursing a baby boy. Her family begged her to recant her faith so that her life might be saved for the sake of her child, but she refused even then!