Perspectives on Parenting

"There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. "

--C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

One of my favorite professors, Dr. Sarah Sumner, said it best, "We live in an anti-child society."

Because of that harsh reality it's easy for parents, teachers and others who serve children to lose perspective on the importance of what they do. Sometimes as a teacher I would think of all of my friends doing more important, more lucrative things and I would wonder if I had made some terrible error and missed the boat of significance altogether. As a stay-at-home parent I sometimes find myself worried that I will fall into invisibility with no contribution to society as a whole.

But yesterday I had a thought that really impacted me and gave me clarity:

We live in a society that values money and things above all else, but in 500 years every dollar I've earned will have disintegrated. Most of the schools and companies I've worked for will probably have disintegrated as well. Every expert I hear on the radio will have been rendered irrelevant. Nobody will remember what house I lived in or what kind of car I drove. But there will still be a Lilia Joy, praising God in Heaven with angels, and she will still be impacted by the things I do every day right now.

People often talk about the fact that teachers and parents are important, but they usually say it in sort of a patronizing way. Like the way Mrs. Armstrong says, "There are no small parts, only small actors" in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. They say it with a misty look and a reassuring tone before they get back to the serious business of earning and spending money.

But I'm here to say the job of parent is frighteningly, alarmingly, deadly serious. The consequences will literally outlast the companies we work for, the universities we've graduated from, the country we live in and the earth we inhabit. It is insane to me that God entrusted this job to human beings, but for whatever reason He did and I, for one, am going to go whole hog with it. No holding back, no regrets.