When our kids show us up…..

A couple of days ago, as I was leaving the gym with Andy and the kids, the receptionist exclaimed ‘Wow! You’ve been again! We should call you the fit family!’  I left the gym beaming. Not particularly because it’s true (because she didn’t see the cajoling and bribing it took to get a certain member of the family there in the first place) but because here was someone who believed we were OK parents, who believed we were doing a good job with our kids. She of course did not have the full picture but I liked that she liked what she saw. I felt irrationally proud.

I say irrationally because there have been plenty of times through the years when the opposite has been true. My kids have shown me up in public in spectacular fashion. I was a shouter, You could hear me bellowing (in an authoritative tone, I’d like to think) as my kids ran riot in leisure centres and shops all over the area. I would tell the child in question off very loudly and sternly so that everyone watching and judging would think I was at least trying to do a good job with discipline (I see that a lot in the shop where I work and it really makes me cringe now – especially when the parent says about me ‘The lady is watching. The lady will get cross. The lady will take your sweets away. The lady will tell Santa!?!)

One place we really wanted out kids to behave was church. We longed to be a nice Christian family with nicely dressed children who sat still and answered politely when spoken to. That was never going to happen. Right from child number one who crawled under all the chairs pretending to be a miner and sat under the table in Sunday School through child number two (who liked to dress up in policeman tabards etc – which I had a lot less problem with than Andy did) through to child number four who resolutely still refuses to stand up for any of the songs and child number five who scared all the other toddlers to death by her hair pulling and scratching………..Years ago, a wise man told me that I should not ever see my kids as merely a reflection of me, as a proof that I was a good mother or not – our kids are all individuals he said and we are not here to control them but guide them and keep them safe and love them unconditionally. I have struggled with that as my kids have grown up and made some pretty poor choices along the way. I have worried about what other people have thought of me as a parent. I have been proud of their successes and kindnesses and have been happy to been buoyed up by those, but of course the flip side of that is that I have struggled not to be dragged down by their selfishnesses and failures. I have tried really hard not to see what they do and say as a reflection on my parenting and make it about me – I try not to use phrases about letting me down, showing me up, being a disappointment to me. Because it isn’t about me – their behaviour and attitude has consequences for them and that’s what matters.

This is very real and in your face as parent of a toddler – that expert at tantrums and disobedience in a writhing screaming package! It doesn’t get any easier as they get older. We secretly yearn for teenagers that will behave, do well at school, join all the clubs going, get in with the right crowd, steer clear of drink and drugs and smoking and swearing, choose to go to church….that would be a relief…..that would be easier……we wouldn’t have to worry about what other people think and how they are judging us…….we wouldn’t have to struggle with loving unconditionally this young person that scares us and we don’t even particularly like most of the time…..

That is not my reality. That is not the reality for most people that I meet. And even for those where it looks from the outside that it is their lovely enviable perfect world, we never know what is going on behind closed doors or what is waiting just around the corner.

I have and am accompanying my kids on a journey that has taken me into lots of waiting rooms and conversations and situations I would rather never have encountered. All I can say is I’ve done my best and I love all my children with a passion and I want the best for all of them, whatever that looks like for them.

And why have I rambled on in this semi-coherent way this morning? Because of Eli. And more particularly, Eli’s sons.

As it puts it so well in the Message –

Eli’s own sons were a bad lot. They didn’t know God and could not have cared less about the customs of priests among the people.  1 Samuel 2:12

Eli was a priest. A good priest. A godly man. Because he was a priest, his sons automatically became priests too. But they were not good priests. They were not godly men.

There was an accepted way of preparing meat for the sacrifice to the Lord, but Eli’s sons had no regard for this. They preferred roasted meat to boiled meat and so forced the people to compromise the sacrifice. They had no regard for the women either – sleeping with the women who served at the entrance to the tent of meeting. They knew best. They would do it their way. You only live once.

Eli knew that they were not doing the right thing and he was scared. Scared for them and scared for himself.

And there was the young boy Samuel, doing it all right. Every year, his mother brought him a new tunic to wear. She was blessed with a family – three sons and two daughters – but she would never forget Samuel, her precious answer to prayer. Samuel stayed in the sanctuary and grew up with God.

And as for Eli and his sons? Well, it’s not going to end well for them. A man of God comes and prophesies, reminding Eli how he and his sons are part of a long line of priests, stretching back through the generations – and with that privilege comes great responsibility. There is no protection for those who refuse to honour the Lord though. The two sons Hophni and Phinehas, will both die on the same day. And God will raise up a new priest, not from that family line, ‘a faithful priest, who will do according to what is in my heart and mind’ (v35).

So where does that leave us?

Well, we can all do the best job we possibly can as parents, but at the end of the day, we do not control (and should not control) our children’s choices and decisions and behaviours. They are their own people. Our special people. We may not like everything they do and we may not approve of their choices, but they are our children and they need our love and support. We need to find a way to care less about what other people think. Our kids need to know we are there for them. Of course there will be consequences of their actions – we cannot protect them from those – but we can stand beside them in whatever mess they have created this time – not to solve everything and make it all alright (we may be good but none of us are superhuman, right?) but just to be there.

Parenting is the hardest job in the world. Some days we get it more right than others.

So how can we make it easier (more bearable some days) for us and for other parents?

We play our part in all this.

As I’ve said before, if we feel judged, it’s probably because we’re pretty good at judging other people.

We stand back and judge the parent of the screaming toddler in the supermarket.

We stand back and judge the parent of the teenager who refuses to go to school.

We stand back and judge the parents sat at home watching TV while their kids wreck the local play area.

We avoid spending time with the perfect families who make ours look not so great. And we rejoice when something goes wrong for them because it shows they are human too and just like the rest of us.

We like to see other people doing a bad job of parenting because it makes us feel better about our own little world and that we are not the only ones struggling.

If we don’t want to be judged, we need to find a way to stop judging.

If we want to be understood and accepted, then we need to start understanding and accepting others.

If we want to be supported, we need to find a way to support others.

All of this is key I think. Let’s give some thought today about how we talk about our own family and the families of others. Let’s spend some time reflecting before God on our attitude to our own kids and our parenting. What is God wanting to say to each one of us about this today?