Sherds from a jar of clay

A few things recently have had me thinking about parenting and how we think about it. It's not that I think I am some extraordinary paragon of parenting, I just think I'm a good enough parent and I do the best I can to parent the children I have been given in the set of situations in which I find myself each day. As a sinner I know I don't even do that perfectly, however, I also do not think that parenting is totally relativistic, even beyond the obvious far end of the spectrum things to avoid like abuse there are right and wrongs and better and worse things to do.

Two weeks ago I took my kids to their first dental appointments, not knowing what the office was like or how long it would take I threw some water, snacks, books and crayons in my bag before we left. It turned out to be a good thing because my son was for some reason not listed on our dental plan so he didn't have to go. The waiting area had a few dozen various books lying about and my kids kept bringing them to me to read. This attracted other kids since no one else was reading to their kids. Then most of the kids started going back to their dentists, one boy about 10 or so was literally stuffing peanutbutter crackers into his mouth until the moment he went back, I felt sorry for the dentist who had to examine and clean his teeth, his mom didn't say a word about it and in fact wasn't even talking with him as they waited. This left me and my 4 year old , a mom with two 4 or younger kids and a few moms all waiting for our kids to be done. Other mom with kids was busy playing games on her cell phone and only talked to her kids to reprimand them for being antsy. I was reading to my son and he was working on a preschool workbook I had in my bag. I felt like an exhibit at the zoo, to me this was just normal being with my kid, I was stunned by the lack of interaction between the other mom's and children.

Then Newsweek magazine came out with a cover story on modern super moms, (see link to article and interview with author on my husbands blog, along with his comments) . It was such a frustrating article to read, the whole focus was on how society should change to meet the needs of these women so that they could have family, life and career and have it all on their own terms. There was no mention of what might be best for the kids or of the possible need of the moms to examine their priorities, change, put something aside for a time etc. Now don't get me wrong all moms need a break from time to time and it is not wrong to work outside the home but if God gave you kids then you have a responsibility to them and they are supposed to be a priority in your life.
I have found in my life that God has given me seasons of life, school, gradschool, archaeology, museum job, marriage, kids .... While some of these overlapped briefly I was largely able to concentrate on the gifts, joys and challenges of each and then move on to the next thankful for the chance I had at the one with anticipation of the next. Our gotta have it all and gotta do it now and do it perfect society scares me sometimes and it is hard not to get sucked into it or to feel guilty when you are not acting like that. Maybe the book I got for Christmas Total Truth by Nancy Pearcy will help me some with that it is about developing and maintaining a Christian world view in all parts of our modern life. Perhaps I will have more to say about it when I have gotten further in it. For now I will take my tired, achey fighting off the a cold or something body off to bed and let my patient husband have the computer back.