Parenting Goals: What do you think?

Do you think parents should have goals and plans? If so, what kind?

When I venture to write about parenting, I always do so tremulously. Yes, I am the mother of four adult children, ages 30 to 24, mother-in-law to three. And yes, they are pretty awesome kids. But my husband and I (and my children, I’m sure) agree—their awesomeness is not the product of our parenting expertise, of which we have some, but not enough. They have grown and matured and become the wondrous creatures they are only by the grace of God.

That being said, even as God has grown our children, he has redeemed and matured us as parents over the past thirty years. Since this month’s blog theme is Planning and Goals, I decided to revisit our parenting goals or lack thereof.

The Early Years: My Top 5 Unstated Parenting Goals

The truth is, I’ve never been much on writing down my parenting goals. I think we may have done it once when our eldest was a colicky six-month-old, when the gracious grandparents offered to keep him so we could go to a Family Life conference. I think there was a workbook, and I think there was a place for parenting goals? (As you can see, the postpartum amnestic effect took its toll!).

By the time our second child came along twenty-one months later, I had neither time nor energy to write formal parenting goals. That is not to say that I didn’t, at some level, have them. So here it is…

My Previously Unstated Parenting Goals

1. To survive.
2. To have the ideal family.
3. To win the “mother-of-the-year” award.
4. To raise kids just like us.
5. To “just get them out.” (All four of my children were 8-14 days overdue;-)!

As my children grew, and as God grew me, I believe some truer goals/desires/prayers emerged, although again, I don’t recall writing them down.

The Later Years: My Top Five List of Mostly Unstated Parenting Goals

1. Remember that God loves me even when I’m a “failure” as a mom.

Before I became a mom, I taught English to junior high and high school students. I loved teaching, and I was mostly good at it (according to my superiors, students, and [most of] their parents). When I brought that first baby home, my competence and confidence evaporated. (Maybe I pushed them out along with the baby in my 33-hour Pitocin-induction labor?)

Some of my parenting ‘fails’ make me laugh now. I didn’t know what happened when you changed a boys’ diaper. One time a second-grade teacher sent me a note requesting that I pack a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in my child’s lunch instead of peanut butter and crackers (This was in the days when peanut butter was not verboten.) And so on.

Although my parenting ‘fails’ make me laugh, my parenting sins make me weep. I lost my temper, I yelled, I guilted them, and I whined. And that’s just the beginning. Frequently. It hurt. Them and me. I wanted to be a perfect mom—always kind and patient and nurturing. Hope came as I learned I could not make God love me less. Rest came as I trusted in Christ’s righteousness, not my performance as the core of my identity.

2. Ask forgiveness. Repent quickly.

This second goal is a corollary to the first.

I’m not sure how any parent survives the guilt and shame of failing our children if we do not believe that Christ freed us from our sins and God has forgiven us in Christ.

So I learned to say I was sorry. To God and to my children. I didn’t/don’t always go quickly, but I usually went/go. I learned to ask forgiveness for – fill-in-the-blank: speaking too quickly, humiliating them, not listening to them…the list goes on. I learned to ask God to change my heart.

To this day, my husband and I believe that asking forgiveness and repenting are the most important habits we developed as parents.

3. Pray for me as a mom, pray for them as kids.

I didn’t know this till I became a parent, but I quickly realized that many questions in parenting don’t have clear answers. Not only are we often confused as parents, we are also frequently powerless.

Do we let them cry at night or pick them up and feed them? What do I do when my child is bullied on the playground? How do I punish my teen for breaking curfew to help a friend? And on and on. Sometimes there are practical answers, and it often helps to seek wise counsel, but the first and last and in-between thing to do is pray.

4. Help them live their stories for God’s glory.

It took us way too long to realize this. For many years we tried to get our kids to live the story we had written for them (see above). Over time, though, we learned and are learning to honor the individuals God has created them to be. We ask God to show us how to support and encourage them in living out that story for God’s glory—not for ours!!!

5. Teach them, “Be kind to one another” (Ephesians 4:32).

This was one of the few parenting goals that I think I might have written down. I know I knew it by heart. It was my go-to, my default. It was the motto I wanted my kids to live by, so much so that I have been known during sibling bickering to raise my voice many octaves and command: “Be kind to one another!”

Parenting Goals, Yes or No?

In writing this blog, I discovered that I have had and do have a mission in mind—“Be kind to one another, forgiving one another, just as in Christ, God forgave you.” That mission in many ways guided my goals, which I think I did write down—as prayers: “Lord, help me to help [insert child’s name] in her struggle with organic chemistry” (I totally made that one up). There was and is an intentionality to my mothering, and I did take specific actions to reach my often-unstated parenting goals.

A Prayer about Parenting Goals

Dear God, you are such a good Father. Thank you for forgiving us our parenting sins and for helping us get over our parenting fails. You indeed have parenting goals for us, to grow us to be mature and complete, to live for your glory, and to bless others with the riches of Christ. Help us as parents to set good goals for our family: to learn, live, and love in your story of grace. In Christ’s kind name we ask, Amen.

What about you? Do you write goals for parenting? Do you have a family mission statement? What steps would you like to take to be more intentional about your parenting?

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash