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Parenthood

May 9, 1971
Exodus 20:1-17
John li. Buchanan

In one sense, there is no more popular subject than motherhood. Mother's
Day is a nostalgic kind of day when all of us, I suppose, find ourselves
remembering, reminiscing, and wishing that somehow things could be like thoy
used to be. Our options on this day are to celebrate the past or deal with the
present. nd to do the latter: to deal honestly with motherhood today is to
acknowledge that we are in a changing and somewhat ominous historical situ—
ation. It is to acknowledge that responsible parenthood is a matter of tremen—
dous importance and seven difficulty in a way it has never been before.

At the risk of sounding like a male chauvinist I shall, in this sermon,
use the term "parenthood"; simultaneously wishing all a "Happy Mother's Day“ i
and then asking you to think with me about the whole business of being mothers
and fathers and children ~ that is to say, familics - in the year of our Lord
1971.

Dr. Albert Outler, Professor of Theology at Southern Methodist Universi ty
recently remarked that the established institutions of our culture are exper-
iencing the sociological equivalent of a nervous breakdown. Government, the
courta, law enforcement, education, the church; and among them, if not at the
top of the list, the family. The erisis of the American family is reflected,

I believe, in the sheer volume of printed material which is addressed to the

topic. HNagazine articles, books, “how ta do ‘itt manuals, newspaper columms,

ada up to a deluge of frantic advice, all of which assumes that the family is
in deep trouble.

From the extremist fringes of our culture ~ and I don't mind calling
some of them lunatic ~ we are advised on the one hand that motherhood and
the family are the oppressive tools of a Sigkectaigesd Maki culture, and that a
liberated female will be granted abortion on demand; if she bears a child

through some unfortunate sequence of’ events, she will plunk him in a state

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child-care center while she drives her semi — which exercise is euphemistically
called "liberation, On the other hand, we are advised that what our culture
really needs is a return to the Victorian standards of discipline, which in
the 19th century were called "Child Management"; that the best thing we can

de for children is teach them obedience — highly recommended, by the way, by
Adolf Hitler; and that somchow we are in a family crisis because of a gentle
physician by the name of Spock, who made the fatal error of opposing the Viet
Nam war and since has become the favorite scape goat for the people who haven't
the foggiest notion of what he really said in his book.

That's on the fringe, but in the middle we are dealing with a different
situation in terms of mobility which overloads the nuclear family with emotional
fright, something called a generation gap, and a real conflict in values. Tt
all adds up, I believe, to a crucial turning point for the family as an insti-
tution, and an added responsibility on all of us who mist be parents. That,
by way of introduction,

I would begin by holding up before you the singular importance of the
family. I sense that many of us simply don't know, or are unwilling to
acknowledge, the tremendous importance of our roles in the family. When you
call the family into question: when you suggest structural change in the
family as the basic societal unit, you are dealing with the very bed-rock of
human civilization. I read, this morning from the 20th chapter of the book
of Exodus: the Ten Cammandments. There “honoring Parents" is established as
one of the essentials in a life lived in harmony with God's will: no less
important than not killing or stealing. As Christians - as people informed
by the Bible - parenthood and the family are essential parts of God's economy.

One doesn't have to look far for the evidence to document that affirmation.
Illustrations are plentiful. Let me share two that I found interesting. 4
study done several years ago at Bellavue Hospital in New York by Dr. Lauretta

Bender, conclusively proved that nothing can substitute adequately for a

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family. That is why, by the way, welfare departments do everything possible
to place wards in Foster Homes rather than institutions. That is why, in our
community, the matter of the uso of Cary Home is so vitally dwpartigats it
has been seriously proposed that we simply ought to fill up Cary Home with P
children ~ even though every available bit of knowledge tells us that a mediocre
foster home is better for the child than an’ insitutuion.

4. second illustration, During the London Blitz in World War II, there
was a concorted cffort to evacuate children under five and place them in
institutions or relatives! homes in the countryside. ifter the war studies
were made and when the results were in they revealed that the children who had
remained with their mothers and had gone through the incomparable horror of
the bombings were somehow in better mental health than those who were cvacu-—
ated. (Jj. C. lynn, How Christien Parents Face Family Problems, p. 19-20]

That says something about the importance of parenthood and families. It
also says something to me about our tendency to move the children out in a time
of family crisis,

Parents are important, because in the complex of relationships that make
up a family teaching and learning aro always happening. We might wish that
it were othcrwisc - that we could find times % esgeape that particular respon=
sibility, but it cannot be done. In a little volume "The Art of Teaching" Dr.
Gilbert Highet puts it succinctly: "It is impossible to have children without
teaching thom. Beat them, coddle them, ignore thom, forcefoed them, shun
them or worry about them, love them or hate them, you arc still teaching thom
something, all the time."

That is to say - wo teach positively, intentionally, consciously, or
negatively, unintentionally, unconsciously; and parents who understand that,

it seoms to me, are doing the better job of it. What we are teaching is a

value system. Childron becmme pretty much what we have taught them to become.

Their values are what thoy have derived from their parents - and it can be

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positive or negative, depending entirely on the paronts.

There is something frightening about that, and before the situation looks
totally grim, let me hasten to add the other side of it. Family counselors
atiaie say that most parents are doing a pretty fair job. The really bad
parent is a newsworthy item. imd on more than one occasion I've heard
responsible experts advise parents to stop worring so much. In my mind, it
is no better to be consumed by a sense of repponsibility to ones children than
it is to ignore them. Ogden Nash said it well:

"Children aren't happy with nothing to ignore
So that's what parents were created for."
Which is another way of saying that parents are persons too, and that perhaps
nothing is so healthy as regular periods of benign ignoring - such as a fow
days alone for the sakc of self and marriage.

The family is important, Biblically, socially, personally. Looking at
the overview, the family seems to be mystically indestructable. But it is,
today, in a peculiarly difficult time, and there are pceuliarly difficult
problems to confront. Let's look at two very broad ones.

First, the traditional functions of the family - the cement that held
parents and children together - have disappeared. The functions once performed
in the home are now the responsibility of outside institutions, namely school,
church, 1.V. and peer group. Tho result is that many homes are reduced to
what one observer called a “combination youth hostel and laundromat". The
school demands a near total commitment in terms of time, and the sheer amount
of hours involved means that school does what parents used to do. ‘The church,
it is assumed, is tho institution that will make children into Christians.
Which means that we give to the Church School class and teacher the respon—
sibility that was exercised by parents alone for thousands of years. There
were, after all, no Sunday Schools until the 19th century. ind television:

the average American 17 year old has watched somewhere in the vincinity o-

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17,000 hours of T.V. Dr. Douglas Heath, Professor of Psychology at Haverford
College says bluntly that this is one of the most important social scicnce

statistics of the last several decades. 17,000 hours. 17,000 hours taken ae
from other activities, mostly social, many of them family oriented. 17,000 <

hours in which children would have been lcarning the art of playing with others,

‘or devising ways to play alone, or exploring the world.

The first difficulty about parenthood is. that our functions have been
assumed by someone else. The second, and more severe + in the mind, is that we
seem to have on our hands a very real crisis between adults and young pcople. y
Call it the Generation Gap if you wish, the fact is that there is a barrior
of hostility between us that colors and influences our attitudes, behavior and
relationships. I've talked with parents who scem not to like their children -
or any children for that matter. Now, I'm not talking about the normal irri-
tations with ono's owm flesh md blood. ‘There are times when you can't stand
your own children,end whon children can't stand their parents. I'm talking

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about something decper that is in the air: something ominous and destructive. >

James Michner has written a book entitled; Kent State, What Happened and
Why. According to the Time Magazine review [5-3-7171], "The most startling and
depressing passages .. . are not those about the killing of four students,
«ee but those wherein he records the hate and anger — against a whole student
generation - that surfaced afterward." The author quotes a high school ;
teacher: "imyone who appears on the streets of a city like Kent with long
hair, dirty clothes or barefooted deserves to be shot." And a mother talking

to her daughter: "I+ would have been better for America if every student on

that hill would have been shot." Daughter, “Mother! I was there. Only a

miracle of some kind saved mo.“ Mother: “You would have deserved it."

I've heard that kind of talk - that deep hatred. Where did it come from?
What brought us to this situation in which parents eject Sass children from f
the home and then feel proud of their courage? The depths of this crisis are

staked out in the lives of 60,000 young men = living in Canada, because their . ns

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country, their communities, their churches, and in many cases, their families -
have not stood with them, nor heard them, nor respected them: just rejected
them.

I don't have answers. But I do have an accute sensitivity -— better des—
eribed as a sharp pain where I live - that responsible cianeh must wake up
to the now situation of the 1970's: that the future of our civilization may
very well depend on individual parents recovering their parental functions
and dealing with that hostility that continues to tear us apart.

Now some suggestions or goals: based on a Biblical understanding of man,
and here offered - not as expert advice, but shared in the context of the job
all of us are trying to do - and in which we need the help, support, wisdom
and prayers of cach other.

The Bible views man as a child of God, of inestimable worth, the object
of God's love and the recipient of the grace of Jesus Christ. In terms of
parenthood I think this means that our job is to instill confidence and self-
esteem: to tell and show a child that he is loved, respected and valued for
what he is,’ and not only when he performs according to our standards.

Coming at it negatively it means, don't use your children for tho sake of
your own ego: don't make grades, athletic prowess, musical proficiency the
means by which a child perceives he can win your love.

It means, don't abuse your child. Don't ever belittle him, I know of
families in which parents play a deadly little game with their children and
find it amsing. Whenever the child trics somothing and fails - whether
batting a.ball or simply walking across the room without stumbling the parent
will criticise and belittle and in so doing cut the bottom out of any’ sense of
worth and esteem the child might have.

It moans, don't indulgo: don't get caught in the myth that because you
didn't have it, your child is going to got/it, regardless of what it costs.

That's just a subtle way of using children, and tells them, eloquently, that

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they aren't important cnough to say "no" to.

Confidence and Self Esteem. That's number one. In the Bible, parents

are given the responsibility of teaching values. That's number two. But
realize that what you are comes across far more clearly) than what you say.
Beware of that double standard = in which all of us sometimes find ourselves:
i.e. telling your child that he mst always be honest, and then asking him to

tell somcone you're not home when you don't want to take a phone call. That's

fatal, and it applies to sexuality, integrity, respect for others, loyalty to ~¢ -

country. The values you live by are what gets transmitted, regardless of what

you say.
Number three — in the context of the Christian, faith, parents make promises
about raising children in the “nurture and admonition of the Lord." Tho
responsibility for conveying the Good News of the Gospel is yours, not/alone —
but primarily. The Church School is a resource to help you and your child.
But if the only time he hears the name Jesus Christ, the only time he sees
a Bible, the only time he prays, is on an occasional Sunday morning, the job
will not be accomplished. To raise a child in the nurture and admonition of
the Lord is first of all to have him here on Sunday morning, to be here with
him: it is, second, to pray with him and for him: to read the Bible with him:
to acknowledge the Lordship of Jesus Christ in ways that convey its importancee
There are grave risks in parenthood, 4nd perhaps gavest of all is that
we will succeed. In a very touching article in Presbyterian Life, a father
writes about a son who deserted the army. "Did I teach my son too much? Or a

not enough?’ That's really the vital question. ‘To be a responsible parent

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is one day to cut the strings and step aside as the person you have moided
stands alone with confidence and values and faith.
‘nd along the way it requires intelligent love, acceptance, forgiveness —
in a word Gracc. Ay
So - "Happy Mother's Day!" nA may the Grace of Jesus Christ be with se

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