Work in Progress

I have a con­fes­sion. As an old­er par­ent, I find myself becom­ing, what my old­est son would call, lenient. This digres­sion was some­thing I dis­liked in my own par­ents. Instead of rec­ti­fy­ing my behav­ior though, I’ve found myself ana­lyz­ing the change and seek­ing to under­stand what’s hap­pen­ing. My con­fes­sion is this: I’m most­ly okay with it. Here’s why: 

Rea­son 1 : Good Fam­i­ly Culture

I’ve learned that set­ting up a fam­i­ly cul­ture is essen­tial and hap­pens most­ly when our chil­dren are young. I had a moth­er tell me when my old­est was a tod­dler that the dev­il want­ed my first­born. What a ter­ri­fy­ing thought this was for me. How­ev­er, as I look back on my chil­dren’s younger years I can see that my old­est son helped set that fam­i­ly cul­ture for bet­ter or worse. The cul­ture that includes the free­dom to voice your con­cerns and opin­ions with respect. The cul­ture that has my youngest play­ing cards with his father right now while my third son cooks din­ner. The cul­ture that does the hard work and learns the hard truths. The cul­ture that starts each day with prayer and the word of God.  This fam­i­ly cul­ture is set ear­ly on. This is the bound­ary. I don’t need to be as strict because we are in the rut of good habits and those are hard to leave. 

Rea­son 2 : Education

We are clas­si­cal edu­ca­tors, which means that I’m more con­cerned with teach­ing my chil­dren to seek God in every­thing. It means that we seek the truth, good­ness, and beau­ty of our Cre­ator. We don’t learn in order to get into a good col­lege, get a high pay­ing job, or be smart. If career apti­tude was our main edu­ca­tion­al goal, then my chil­dren would be com­pet­i­tive in the mar­ket by age 13. Then what? Hence my lenience. They know how to learn. They can learn any­thing they want. They want to learn. I don’t need to push them as much as I thought that I need­ed to. In col­lege, which I went to for teach­ing, I was told that it’s eas­i­er to start the year off strict and light­en up as the year goes on. Turns out that par­ent­ing seems to work this way too. My chil­dren know what our fam­i­ly expec­ta­tions are, so they take their own edu­ca­tion seri­ous­ly and we all learn togeth­er to the glo­ry of God. 

Before you assume that we are per­fect, please under­stand that there are plen­ty of things that I am con­stant­ly try­ing to fix. We haven’t spend the time on latin that I’d like us to for one, and that’s on me. I’m con­stant­ly fac­ing my own lim­i­ta­tions, but I’ve learned that I need to embrace them, be hon­est about the strug­gle, and trust God. While my old­est son may see our fail­ure to study latin as a sign of my lenience, I see it as a reminder that I’m still a work in progress too.