We had loaded up the mini-van – actually, crammed every nook and cranny full – driven half way across the country, unloaded and set up our child’s college dorm room. Now, it was time for the opening orientation session for students. The students were directed to one auditorium; the parents were directed to a different one. The University had discovered that parents have a tendency to hover around their freshman child, to linger, and experience difficulty letting go. Not only colleges, but high schools as well have noticed this trend of parents being over-involved and over-protective in the last 10 years or so. In fact, there is a name for this behavior that has cropped up in the media; helicoptering. Wikipedia, the on-line encyclopedia, defines helicoptering as
An early 21st-century term for a parent who pays extremely close attention to his or her child’s or children’s experiences and problems, particularly at educational institutions. Helicopter parents are so named because, like helicopters, they hover closely overhead, rarely out of reach, whether their children need them or not. In Scandinavia, this phenomenon is known as curling parenthood and describes parents who attempt to sweep all obstacles out of the paths of their children. (remember the 2010 Winter Olympics?) It is also called “over-parenting”.
Sharon Jayson, writing in USA TODAY quotes a researcher as saying, “We estimate that 60% to 70% of parents are involved in some kind of helicoptering behavior.” Parents have been known to contact, not only high school teachers but fully tenured professors in college to change the grade of their child. Human resource departments at major U.S. companies are becoming acquainted with helicoptering parents as well. Some have reported that parents have joined in the process of salary negotiations for their graduated son or daughter.
I’ll just bet that what’s been tugging at our minds while we’ve been talking about helicoptering is whether we are helicopter parents, or were. Are we too involved in our child’s life? Or, were we too involved in our child’s life as he or she headed into adulthood, or not involved enough? This Mother’s Day Sunday is a good time to talk about parenting.
Helicoptering is entering into the on-going national discussion about raising our children: how much involvement is appropriate? What is sometimes missing in the debate is the crucial question: what is the purpose of raising children? Why are we doing this? It is no surprise that the Bible has a voice when it comes to parenting. I invite your attention to Deuteronomy 32:10-12 as we find some of the purposes of parenting.
As you are turning to page 214, I want to set these verses in its wider scene. Moses has led the Hebrew people out of slavery in Egypt. They have wandered in the wilderness. Now, they stand at the edge of the Promised Land. It is time for Moses to hand over his leadership to Joshua. But, before he does that, he teaches a song to the people, our chapter 32 of Deuteronomy. The time will come, Moses predicts, when the people will turn away from the Lord, this God who has protected them and blessed them and loved them. At some point, their rejection of God will bring difficulty for them. How can it not when a people keeps turning their back on God and doing what is right in each one’s own eyes? Then, when they blame God, as the song mentions in verse 6, let them understand; it is not God who has turned away from them, but they who have rejected God. And yet, if they turn back, God will bless them again.
Critics have said that this 32nd chapter and the whole book of Deuteronomy could not have been written by Moses as it seems to indicate because the writing style and composition is a 1000 years after Moses. This has been pointed out as a contradiction in the Bible. Then archeologists discovered ancient Sumerian treaties from the 15th to 11th centuries BC that are organized in the distinctive pattern of Deuteronomy. Suddenly, it becomes possible to date Deuteronomy in the time of Moses! The contradiction disappears. Chapter 32 follows the same pattern in miniature. It begins with an introduction from the king – in this case, God is the King. It moves on to a series of questions that point out the unfaithfulness of the people, just as in the ancient Sumerian treaties. (verse 6) Then, the king – or God – declares the benefits he has given. In verse 7 of chapter 32, God begins to relate all his benefits. Verses 10-12 continue in this listing of what God has done for the people of Israel. God has treated his children like a parent. These parenting illustrations help us understand some of the purposes for raising children; not only as parents, but as a congregation. Let’s take a look. (Read)
Encircling. This is the first image of parenting. God acted like a parent with the Hebrew people when He placed his arms around them to protect them. He protected them when He led them out of Egypt, through Moses. When the Egyptian army chased hard after them and their backs were against the Red Sea, trapped, God split the sea lake in two, providing a path for them to escape. God protected them. God also encircled them with his providing arms, like a parent. Each day, God provided manna, a thin substance that could be gathered, cooked up and eaten. God protected and provided like a parent.
Providing for and protecting our children is one of the primary responsibilities of parents. I remember working in the back yard, while one of my children and a friend were playing in the front yard. I heard a sound, not quite sure what it was, but it was a sound that needed investigating. I rounded the corner to find a teen-age boy talking to the two. This stranger thought they were fighting and came up on our lawn to break them up. They weren’t fighting, just pretending, but in the few seconds before I realized why the teen-ager approached my child, my body shot adrenaline into every blood vessel and pore. I was ready to do battle, if necessary. It’s a parent’s instinct, to protect the child.
This may seem basic, but it is important. Providing for and protecting our children meets their basic needs for security and love. Those who become Habitat for Humanity house owners report that owning their own home, warm, dry, usually in a better neighborhood than where they were renting changes their children. Security and stability are foundational to the welfare of children, no matter their age.
We as a congregation play a part in establishing a place of security and happiness for our children. It does me good to see children walking by themselves through the halls of our church. It communicates that this congregation is a safe place for children; we care for and protect our children. That is just great. Protection and providing is an essential task in parenting our children, whether at home or in church. Helicoptering is sometimes necessary when it comes to issues of protection and providing.
The song of Moses uses another parenting illustration. It changes from a human parent to a mother bird, an eagle. It says that like an eagle, it “stirs up the nest.” The picture the song gives us is that of a mother eagle, who knows the right time to stir her eaglets, one at a time, onto the ledge of the nest, then pushes each one out to learn how to fly. Without the push, they might never learn. And yet, she stands ready to swoop down after them, and come up underneath them if they get into trouble. What a great picture of helping our children grow. It reminds me of the expression, “Children need roots to grow and wings to fly.” Certainly, we need great wisdom knowing when to stir up our own nests! This issue of giving our children wings seems to be at the core of the helicoptering issue. When children are small, it is unrealistic to expect them to be self-reliant. However, particularly as children grow towards high school and beyond, they need help in stretching their own wings, making their own decisions and experiencing the results of their actions. That is part of the learning process. One of the principles I was taught going through training to be a coach for new church pastors is, that if a church planter makes a decision where the coach is pretty sure she or he will shoot himself in the foot, don’t try to stop or change the decision. That’s how the planter learns. However, if the planter is about to make a choice that is like shooting himself in the head, then intervene! Perhaps that is a principle for parenting as well. With each idea or decision the youth makes, we can ask ourselves if it is a good decision, a shoot oneself in the foot decision, or a hole in the head decision. That can help us choose how to respond. At some point when the growing up child refuses to wear a rain jacket, let him go off to school without one. He’ll learn on his own. She wants to become a volley ball player, even though she’s all of 5 feet one inch tall? Why discourage her? Let her learn through practice and work whether she can make it in a sport that favors taller players.
“It’s flabbergasting how youth have changed,” says Dr. Elisa Medhus, former family physician, mom of five and author of, Raising Everyday Heroes: Parenting Self-Reliant Children. “Many kids don’t know how to hard boil an egg. Our job as parents is to work ourselves out of a job.” (USA TODAY)
We help our children grow up when we as parents understand that one of the purposes of parenting is to help our children make choices on their own.
We as a congregation can help in this process as well. Children are baptized into membership in our church. Our membership job description includes living up to the vow we take when we stand at a baby’s baptism to support the parents in their task of raising their children for Jesus Christ. It doesn’t take much to walk up to a youth and start a conversation. It doesn’t take much to take an active interest in a teen-ager. Youth need adults other than just their parents to bounce ideas off of and to find encouragement. I was so glad to see many members of our congregation attend high school musicals recently that featured three of our senior high youth. We can join in the process of helping our youth develop their wings by coming underneath and supporting them.
Purposes of parenting include protecting and caring for, pushing them a bit to develop their own self-determination, and another purpose. Moses’ song says (verse 12) Moses wants to be sure Israel will understand that it was the Lord who leads them, no one else. The focus of the song is upon God. This is the greatest purpose of parenting, helping our children take the hand of the Lord in trust.
Some fascinating studies have been done over the years in the area of children, youth and faith. Researchers probed the reasons why children grew up to take on faith and become active in church, which is one measurable standard of connection with God. At first, researchers said that children who go regularly to church growing up have a higher percentage of retaining the faith than those who did not grow up in church. This makes sense; after all, if a person is exposed regularly to something, they at least know something about it and are more likely to retain it. Then, more research was done. The results showed that even more people took on faith and remained or returned to church if the father was active in faith and church attendance. More recently, researchers found an even greater correlation. When parents engage in an on-going way to take responsibility for raising their children and when children see it is important to their parents, children often take on faith, too. While the church helps and supports the parents, it is the parents who take primary responsibility to raise a child for Jesus Christ.
So, here’s an interesting quiz. Ask your child, small or grown, what your top three priorities in life are. Ask them what is most important to you. Let them mention three or so. Then, ask them, of the three, what do you see as most important to me? If the answer is Jesus Christ, then the likelihood of their taking on faith in Jesus is high. Bringing a child to faith is the most important purpose of parenting. As a congregation, we can help parents in leading their children to Christ by acting in loving, supporting, Christ-honoring ways – even small ways. For instance, I like when an infant cries in church. The child and parents are here! Here’s the other reason I like it. I’ve been in churches where an infant will make a noise and members of the congregation will turn around and stare, as if to say, “Take that child out of church.” In our congregation, I find instead that people smile at infants, children and their parents. What a welcoming difference!
We help by loving one another as family (as we discussed last week). We can demonstrate love and care to our youth and children. In short, when we act like God’s children, we help our church’s children come to know Jesus Christ personally.
Whether we have children or not, we all are engaged in the purposes of parenting: security, growing self-reliance, and leading to Christ. May God be pleased with our family raising!