A Good Mom, part 2 (What she does NOT do)

In the last post, we talked about some things a good mom does (or SHOULD do).   This post is more about what a good mom does NOT do.   Remember, a "good mom" is one who is living a life of godliness.

1.  A good mom does not make her children her idols.

Ouch!  Does that step on anyone else's toes?   An idol, according to Scripture, is anything that we place above God in our lives.   Most of us have never owned a graven image that we worship instead of God, but often times we put our relationships with others above our relationship with God.   Or, maybe I am the only one who does that at times.  (I think not!)  In today's society, moms often make their entire worlds revolve around the hopes, desires, safety, and even slightest whim of their children.  While I am not saying that we should not be concerned about those things for our children, the problem comes in when we allow our children to take the highest priority in our lives.   Often we are encouraged to parent "on demand" from our children.  If a child says they are hungry, we should feed them whatever they want, whenever they want.  If they want a new toy, they should have it.  If they want to interrupt conversations with our husband or other adults, they should be front and center.  Does this sound familiar?   The Bible does not teach this at all.  Yes, children are an heritage from the Lord (Psalm 27:3-5).   Yes, they are precious and innocent and wonderful, and we definitely want to be with them and to protect them.  However, they are NOT the center of the universe, and we do them no favors by allowing them to feel that way.   God tells us in Luke 14:26 that if we do not hate father, mother, child, etc., we cannot follow Him acceptably.  Does God really want us to hate our families that He has given us?   Matthew 10:37 says He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.    The idea here is that nothing should come before God.   We can serve no other Master, including our children.  God MUST come first, then our husbands, and THEN our children.  While we should cherish them and treat them with love and respect, we also must set limits and teach them their proper place of priority in our lives.  

2.  A good mom does not refrain from disciplining her children.  

Contrary to popular opinion, letting our children make all their own choices and allowing them to run free without correction does NOT make us good moms or godly moms.  We cannot allow society to make us afraid to correct, train, or discipline our children. I firmly believe we should let kids be kids (especially while they are little!), that does not mean we should allow them to run the show or live without limits.  For the sake of space, I will not write out the entire verse for the following references, but the Bible is crystal clear on this.   Here are just a few references from Scripture:

Proverbs 22:6
Proverbs 3:11-12
Hebrews 12:11 - my favorite to remember when administering discipline
Proverbs 13:24
Proverbs 22:15
Ephesians 6:4
Proverbs 29:15
Hebrews 12:5-11

3.  A good mom does not keep her children from making any mistakes.

This could also say that a good mom lets her kids fail.  Gasp!  In today's culture, we are taught that we should never let our children fail.  We should make sure they always know it is "someone else's fault," we should teach them the blame game, and we should not make them take responsibility for their actions.  The truth is that we should not hover over them so much that they never taste defeat or rejection.  Struggle is a part of life, and we cheat our children out of learning about failure and how to deal with it if we constantly shelter and coddle them.  OF COURSE we want to protect them.  OF COURSE we want to keep them from getting hurt feelings.  OF COURSE we want them to be confident in their abilities.  However, falsely elevating their confidence is not loving.   Keeping them from failing only delays the inevitable.  Remember the point from part 1 about not being perfect? If we never allow them to struggle or fail, what chance do they ever have of recognizing their sinfulness when they reach the age of accountability?  What hope do they have for salvation if they never see that need?   How can they learn to rely on and trust God if we never allow them to suffer consequences so that they can see God's love and mercy?  

4.  A good mom does not neglect praying for her children.

For some reason, this is something I struggle with the most.  I have so many things I WANT to pray for in regards to my children, but I allow the hecticness of life to interfere sometimes and I just forget.  Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed with handling the urgent things in life that I neglect to take the time for what is necessary.  I have started leaving myself reminders to stop and pray for my children.  I pray for their future spouses and for the parents who are currently raising them.  I pray for their future roles in the Lord's church.   My little one already wants to be a song leader one day, so I pray for him to always have the desire to serve the Lord.  My daughter has some medical struggles, and I get caught up sometimes in worrying about those, when what I really need to do is to pray about them.  Look at Hannah (1 Sam 1) and how she prayed for Samuel to belong to the Lord even before he was born!   Think about how Mary spoke to God about Jesus before HE was even born.   I think at times we underestimate the importance of a praying mother in the lives of her children.

5.  Finally, a good mom does not compare herself to other moms.  I am so often guilty of this.   We should compare our lives and parenting only to Scripture.  James teaches us that when we read Scripture it is like looking into a mirror and revealing our faults and needs for correction.  We need to remember that God has made each of us special in our own ways.  Our families also have unique talents, struggles, and needs.  You are not me.  I am not you.  Our children are not clones of each other.   We must look to God's word for our parenting strategies and be content with what we find there to direct our lives.  Our focus should be on imitating Christ, not one another.  We can, of course, encourage one another, learn from older women, and get ideas and help from one another, but ultimately we should remember who lights our path.

Please know as you read these that I am speaking to myself as much as (or more than!) anyone.   I most certainly do not have this parenting thing all figured out, and just when I think I DO, something else comes up that reminds me of my constant need for God's love, mercy, and guidance.  May God bless all of you as you point those little arrows towards heaven.