Ever catch yourself thinking, “I don’t want to adult!” because you are overwhelmed and have no idea what you are doing?
Ever feel like your parents and/or teachers could have better equipped you for what life would be like?
Did you reach 18 and realize you have no idea how to do most basic things?
A lot of people feel that way.
A lot of people did what they were told, made good grades in school, excelled in extra curriculars, checked all the boxes and then found that none of that meant much of anything in the real world.
Not recognizing the source of failure in their life, they internalize it, try harder to check all the boxes thinking it will fill that void, and repeat the same process with their own children.
A lot of people didn’t do any of those things.
Instead, they were allowed to do as they pleased in their adolescence. They spent all their time hanging with friends, doing drugs, “finding themselves”, and “just being kids”.
One day they realized their life sucks, they can’t make ends meet, and they decided it was someone else’s fault so they spend their time now raging against the world they think failed them. All the while, teaching their children that the world is against them.
In both of these cases, we see a failure to properly train children in the way they should go, both in a functional sense and in the spiritual sense.
Yet, there exists a minority of people whose parents strove daily to pass on the things they’d learned of virtue, value, character, discipline, and worth to their children. Who sacrificed so that their children would grow, thrive, and pass on wisdom to their own kids one day.
And they did it all in the name of a God who did those same things for them.
Sometimes we as Christians can become unbalanced.
We will elevate works over faith, or vice versa.
We know that we are saved through faith alone, yet faith without works is dead. (Eph. 2:8, James 2:26)
They are married together and should work as a Godly marriage between man and woman should, that is, as one.
So, as you train your children in the way that they should go, do not neglect to train the whole child.
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. 1 Corinthians 10:31
Society has conditioned us to believe that parental training of any kind is oppressive.
Gone are the days of girls entering adulthood with an understanding of how to cook, clean, budget, meal plan, care for children, or how to be a kind and respectful wife. That’s sexist and oppressive.
No longer is it acceptable to teach boys to be brave, honorable, and hard working men of integrity who love and provide for their household.
To even imply that it’s “their” household is condemned. That’s toxic masculinity.
Teaching children to care for those who are poor and afflicted simply reveals that you think yourself better than others.
That’s racist. You’re privileged. You are a supremacist who supports a system of capitalist greed and oppression.
And raising children to have faith in a God who loves them and calls them to live a selfless life in service to others is absolutely out of the question.
That’s abusive indoctrination.
If all of these things that produce healthy, capable, functioning adults are shamed and condemned, why are we surprised that people do not know how to live?
Why do we marvel at broken homes and a devolving society when we have called good things evil and evil things good?
So, regardless of what society tells you: Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6
And do this in all areas of your child’s life. Equip them to do every good work and to do it unto the Lord.