Where did we go wrong with parenting our kids?

When I was in my mid-teens, my father – holding a folded, hand-written note – said to me (though more by way of self-inquiry): ‘Where did we go wrong?’

I recall him being tearful; standing in our conservatory bathed in the morning sun; his back to me and gazing into the garden as I stood pondering his question.

As I think on that brief childhood moment 30 years later, 20 years as a parent, I now understand why it has remained a fixture in my memory.

The overarching answer to my father’s question is and always has been the same answer to anyone posing this question. We ‘went wrong’ at the Fall, when Adam and Eve chose their own way over God’s, leaving the tragic legacy of a world and its inhabitants broken and cursed by death.

But my father was thinking not of the human race, but of one of his daughters.

Mary (not her real name) was baptised at 14 and left home – and the Lord – at 19. She had written explaining that she’d asked for baptism because she thought it was expected and now knew she wasn’t a Christian.

Ill-placed question

So where had my father gone wrong? His question, though entirely understandable in that moment of sadness, was ill-placed.

Our brokenness, our natural sinfulness, reduces all we think and do and say to imperfection in God’s holy sight. Even our righteousness is as filthy rags, yet God is gracious, pouring out His mercy on whom He will have mercy.

My parents taught us the Scriptures from our earliest days. Family meals ended with Bible reading and prayer, and sometimes a hymn or psalm – if not terribly tuneful. We were immersed in church services, youth meetings, camps and conferences – and were the subject of our parents’ prayers.

God’s remit

And my parents ‘walked the walk’, a fine example of Christ-like living – but they are not perfect. And therein lies the answer to my father’s question.

His best parenting efforts were just that. Years of saturating his children in the Scriptures, of living by example, was not enough to save them. That is God’s remit.

To imagine that our own hard work in godly teaching will save our children is to be deluded at best and sinfully proud at worse. The Lord’s redemptive power is not triggered by our best efforts, rather it is exercised by His own work within the individual heart through the Holy Spirit.

This doesn’t negate our responsibility to speak of Jesus to our families and beyond, showing others their personal need of the Saviour – and to pray earnestly for them. It should also fill us with a deep sense of humility that God should choose us, as imperfect parents, to be instruments in the lives of our precious children, to make known His power and compassion.

We are then liberated from trying to bear a weight we need not carry – Jesus convicts the heart and saves; not us. Mary remains far from the Lord but my imperfect parents have never stopped praying for her nor witnessing to her.

Success?

Let’s not conflate perfection with success. Though we cannot, in this life, be perfect parents we can be successful. I would contend that success as a Christian parent means fulfilling our responsibilities to God and our children by bringing them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord, constantly entrusting their souls to Him – as my parents continue to exemplify.

Then let the Lord crown our imperfect efforts by saving them if He chooses.

The apostle Paul, who reassured the church that was in Rome that ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved’, is the same Paul who graciously told his listeners on Mars Hill that the Lord is not far from each one of us – even my precious children.

What a comfort that is to me, the imperfect parent.