 |
 |
|
| Giving What We Didn’t Get
by Carol Kuykendall
 “How will you raise your child differently than you were raised?”
When I became a mom, that question popped up in a lot of different places, especially in conversations with other new moms — as if we believed our answers would help us become the mothers we needed to be. So, with optimistic naiveté, we critiqued and tweaked the ways we were parented, determined to give our children what we didn’t get.
As I re-ran the tapes of my childhood, I had to admit there wasn’t a lot I’d change. Growing up in the country with three siblings and a number of animals, I quickly learned that the world wasn’t all about just me. My mother’s strong sense of family, adventure, humor and celebration were qualities I wanted to pass on in my own mothering. But I didn’t like my parents’ short fuses or lack of understanding about who I was, apart from my siblings.
Yet there was something even more important I didn’t get that I wanted to give my own children: seeds of faith. As a child, God seemed real to me, but Jesus was just the baby in the manger that came out of the box of Christmas decorations along with the rest of the nativity pieces.
I don’t remember ever talking about faith. The only time we prayed together was before Thanksgiving dinner. And my only memory of going to church was for funerals and maybe for Easter. Though we usually went to an outdoor sunrise service because my parents felt closest to God in the mountains near our home.
By the time I reached high school, with all its drama and inconsistent relationships and awkward circumstances, I recognized a God-longing in my heart. That pathway led to learning more about Jesus. But it wasn’t until I got married, became a mom and attended a Bible study that I understood my God-longing was a Jesus-longing, fulfilled when a person intentionally chooses to enter into a growing, personal relationship with him. So I did.
That’s when I knew I wanted to give my children an awareness of who Jesus is and why he came to us as a baby in that manger at Christmas and what he did for us at Easter. I knew I could not make faith choices for them, but I hoped they would understand the kind of love Jesus gives us. So in our everyday lives, we talked about him and to him.
Today I stand at a different place of perspective, watching my adult children raise their children. I’m sure they have conversations with their friends about the ways they were mothered, determined to do some things differently. After all, that’s a healthy rite of passage into parenting.
I’ll bet they don’t want to pass on my tendency to have a short fuse or my annoying impatience. But for this, I am most grateful: they are talking to their children about Jesus.
Carol Kuykendall is a Consulting Editor for "MomSense" magazine, the author of "Five Simple Ways to Grow a Great Family" and co-author of "What Every Mom Needs", available at MOPShop.org. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
