Good News For Family Life
This week we’re trying something new, with a video review from Cathy of the book “Soul Food for Mums*“, by Lucinda van der Hart and Anna France-Williams. Check out the review below, and tell us what you think.
If you’d like to purchase the book for yourself (or for a friend who’s expecting or just had a baby), then please use this link. It won’t cost you any more, but we’ll receive a few pennies to support us running the website.*
Few would deny that adoption and fostering are wonderful things to do. And yet many are put off from considering it themselves due to some commonly held misconceptions. In light of this, we thought we’d use this week’s post to debunk some of the common myths surrounding adoption and fostering.
I recently went to the Home For Good Summit; a conference for Christians about adoption and fostering. It was really informative and eye-opening.
There seems to be a lot of misconceptions about adoption and fostering – I had many incorrect preconceived ideas myself – so here’s my effort to debunk some of the common myths and to pass on what I learnt.
Not true.
It is possible to receive a newborn baby straight from hospital with a “Concurrency Placement”.
With concurrency planning adoption, you are approved as a foster carer and adoptive parent simultaneously. You are matched with a newborn baby who comes to live with you for the first six months of their lives (in this time period you are their foster parent/s, and you get paid accordingly). The child comes to live with you because there is a very strong chance that they will not be able to return to their birth family. During these six months you will need to meet with the birth mother/parents weekly at a neutral environment with a social worker.
After six months a judgement will be made in court as to whether the child can safely return to their birth family, or whether you can legally adopt them. This is seen as a win-win for the child. Either they have always lived with you and therefore escape any unsettling moves. Or else their birth family have proven that they can provide and loving and safe home for their child – which is a wonderful scenario too!
This form of adoption isn’t for the faint-hearted as there is a chance that you will have to give up the baby that you’ve grown to love. However, if you are convinced of the worth of early permanency for the sake of the child then it’s a very worthwhile thing to do, and can have wonderful outcomes! The social worker who I spoke to works for an adoption agency which specialises in concurrency adoption. She said that around 9 out of 10 babies get to stay with their adoptive parents.
Barnados do concurrency placements nationwide as do some local authorities. You can call up as many local authorities and agencies as you like and ask them if they do concurrency adoption, and then go through the application and assessment process with one that does.
Find out more info here:
http://www.adoptionconcurrency.org/
Not true.
You can foster if you have young children, you can even foster if you have a baby. However, the needs of all children, your own and those you are fostering must be met. Your assessing social worker will need to be confident that this will be the case.
If you are approved then your social worker will be very careful about which children they match with your family. Your assessing social worker may even interview your own child(ren) to try and understand their personalities and needs to try to guarantee the best possible outcome from a placement.
The two people who were running my seminar at the Home For Good conference were (I’m guessing) in their late 20s/early 30s. Both had 2 young biological children and were also long-term foster parents.
If you are concerned about the impact of long-term fostering on your own children then you could consider respite fostering (perhaps looking after the same child one weekend a month for example) or mother and baby fostering. With mother and baby placements, the mother is often a teenager who needs some support in learning how to look after her baby and how to prepare for independent living in the future. Both respite and mother and baby fostering are options which we would like to explore, as we think they might be a good fit for us as a family.
Fostering and adopting can be very demanding and so your physical and mental health will be discussed during the application process.
That being said, they won’t necessarily preclude you and may be of benefit. If you have a physical disability then you may be able to be more compassionate and understanding towards a child with a disability. Likewise, if you had a mental health issue in the past then you may be able to relate better to a child who struggles with it currently. The assessment process with determine whether you’re deemed suitable for fostering/adopting. If you are approved then you will be matched with suitable children in light of your disability or mental health issues.
Foster parents get paid an allowance and fee to cover the costs of looking after a child. The amount this is depends on a number of different factors. A fostered child is under the care of a local authority while an adopted child is a legal member of their adopted family, therefore the adoptive parents do not receive a fee for looking after the child.
However, there is money available to adoptive parents when they adopt a child with a disability, or a sibling set. This is because the government recognises that sibling sets or disabled children need more care and time from their adoptive parents, and therefore they won’t necessarily be able to support their children as much through paid employment. This financial assistance is known as “Adoption Allowance”. You may also be entitled to Disability Living Allowance for Children, Carer’s Allowance and money through the “Adoption Support Fund”. Adoptive parents are also entitled to Adoption Leave and Pay from their employer and Child Benefit and Tax Credits.
If you are considering adoption, make sure you ask what financial assistance would be available to you if you were matched with a disabled child or sibling set. Do not be shy about this – it is much cheaper for the local authority to have you adopt the children under their care, than for you to foster them. The Adoption Allowance is there to enable children with more challenging needs to still have a good chance of adoption – so don’t be coy about asking!
This is a horrible but widespread stereotype of social workers – I’m guessing that this typecast alone puts a lot of people off even making the initial phone call. However, the reality is that the social workers would be thrilled to hear from you! Social workers do their job because they care about children and want them to have the best possible life chances. They certainly aren’t doing it for the money, prestige or for an easy life! Their utmost concern is for the safety and wellbeing of vulnerable children and so they have to be thorough and diligent in their assessment of you as carers (not simply for the children’s benefit but also for yours). But there’s an enormous shortage of foster families – 9,600 children are currently in need of foster homes, so please don’t preclude yourself based on a false impression of social workers or the assessment process (which is quicker than you think).
As far as the anti-Christian bias goes, this simply isn’t the case. Social workers are very positive when prospective adoptive and foster parents mention their connection with Home For Good. Home for Good is an overtly Christian charity, encouraging Christians to adopt because of God’s adoption of us, and because of the biblical mandate to care for orphans. Home For Good has also been at the forefront of petitioning the government for the care of Syrian unaccompanied minors . In the area of adoption and fostering Christians have been well represented at 10 Downing Street in recent years – so don’t falsely assume that the system discriminates against Christians. Check out our review of the book Home For Good here.
One final thing about social workers – they have a wealth of knowledge, access to helpful resources and are highly motivated for placements to work out. If you foster you will have to work closely with them. But if you adopt, don’t be too quick to get rid of them. Their support, experience and knowledge could still be invaluable once the child is legally yours.
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
James 1:27
So there you have it. Adoption and fostering could be more of an option for you than you previously thought.
Here are the different types of fostering placements:
And the following list of eligibilty criteria shows that lots of different sorts of people can do it:
You don’t need to be a super-parent to do this, super-parents don’t exist. But are you willing to rely on the only super-parent in existence (God) to give you the strength to care for a vulnerable child?
There’s a huge shortage of foster and adoptive parents. Even if the timing isn’t right for you but you’ve found this post informative then please share it to help us debunk the myths. The more children who can find a home with loving families, the better!
“When did your little one start walking? 12 months? Oh darrrrling, my little princess Cherry-Blossom could do back flips by then!”
There are certain parenting mistakes that we can make. We’re not talking about mistakes like not keeping a boundary we’ve set, or saying something in our child’s hearing we shouldn’t. No, we’re talking about a different kind of mistake – mistakes in the realm of what we believe – the mistake of forgetting the gospel and being robbed of our joy and freedom in parenting. These are mistakes in what we believe about God, ourselves or our children, things that lead to a sense of guilt and inferiority, or else pride and superiority.
That’s why we decided to write this series of posts: “5 Parenting Mistakes To Avoid”. The aim of this series is to remind us of the wonderful good news of Jesus in areas where we often forget it as we parent. If you missed the first post (“5 Parenting Mistakes To Avoid: The Comparison Game”), then click through to read it, and to find out more about this series.
This week we’re thinking about the second of these parenting mistakes: competitiveness.
But before we go any further, just a quick reminder. There’s a type of competitiveness we very much encourage – entering our competition! You have until just 5pm today to enter our competition to win a Madlug backpack. Click through to last week’s post to read more about this wonderful organisation and find out how to enter – the winner will be announced tomorrow!
Back to this week’s topic.
Getting The Scales OutWe’ve all met one, haven’t we? A parent like Cherry-Blossom’s mum. That parent who is constantly putting their child on the scales against yours. Which child talked first, or with greater clarity or broader vocabulary? Which child is more socially accomplished? Which child has greater dexterity, better problem-solving skills, has a better grasp of maths, is more creative, is more beautiful? Which… well you get the picture.
The funny thing is, it always seems to be their child that tips the balance.
Not many parents are as brash as little Cherry-Blossom’s mum. Most are far more subtle. We see it in that knowing little look or that “innocent” comment.
Competitive parenting is so unattractive.
But let’s not be too quick to point the finger. We love our children, we spend so much time with them and grow to appreciate their talents, the developmental steps they take, the new things that they learn. That’s right, of course. But as we do that, it’s all too easy for us to move from simply appreciating them, to comparing them to others. When this comparison starts, we’re just a few short steps away from being that competitive, pushy parent.
So what’s the problem? A bit of healthy competition is good, right?
We’re not so sure. Broadly speaking, we think that competitive parenting only ends up leading to one of two things.
Firstly it can lead to pride or arrogance. As we look at other children in comparison to ours and come to the conclusion (rightly or wrongly) that our child is “better”, we feel proud or arrogant. We feel superior to that other parent – their child is clearly either genetically inferior, or else their parent(s) haven’t done quite as good a job as us.
On the other hand, if we’re on the sharp end of competitive parenting or if we look at our child and see that they’re behind their peers, we’re deflated. We feel guilty – have I not been doing the right things to teach my child? Am I doing something wrong? We feel inferior – I’m just not as good a parent. We feel disappointed – why can’t my child outdo the others? We feel short-changed – how come I’m the one who gets the child that struggles?
It’s not a surprise that here on the Gospel-Centred Parenting blog we think that the gospel has something to say to competitive parenting.
What the gospel says to competitive parenting is wonderfully liberating.
The Bible describes humanity as made in the image of God. Every single person has dignity and is deeply significant because they bear the likeness of the God who made them.
And what’s more, that is not simply generally true of all people, but personally true of each individual in a unique way. Check out these wonderful verses from the Psalms:
“You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
Your child was intiricately and purposefully created by our kind Father. They are who they are because that is how God designed them. That means that gratitude is the appropriate response to your child’s abilities (be they top or bottom of the class) because the good, sovereign God of the universe knew exactly who he wanted them to be, and made them so. That strips away both inferiority and pride (it’s not down to us really – and even when have taught our children something well, it’s only because God knew my frame in the secret place and knit me together to enable me to do it – it’s down to him, not me!) We can rejoice in who our children are.
What’s more, we can rejoice in how God has made the other children around us too. They are masterpeices of God’s creative, varied goodness and each show us something of him as his image-bearers.
So next time you meet Cherry-Blossom’s mum at play group, don’t let her comment get to you. Whether what she’s saying is true or not, you can rejoice in both who Cherry-Blossom is, and in who your child is – there’s no need to compete. You can be grateful to God the master craftsman, and you can get on with your day with joy and freedom.
We’re super excited to announce that we’ve been shortlisted for an award!
The Premier Digital Awards seek to “celebrate and encourage excellence in Christian engagement online”. We’re incredibly humbled to have been shortlisted for the “Up-and-Coming” Award. Check out the shortlist here.
We write this blog because we’re convinced that the gospel speaks into every area of our lives including parenting. It’s wonderful news for parents and for children, and we really want to see parents liberated, inspired, edified, emboldened and comforted by the good news of Jesus. But it’s also lovely to see our blog recognised by Premier Digital – we hope that this helps more people to engage with what we’re writing and, by God’s grace, enjoy the gospel for themselves afresh.
We hope you continue to enjoy our musings. Please keep engaging with the blog and sharing the content – it’s a huge encouragement to us when you do.
With love,
Scott and Cathy
We’re excited for our first ever GIVEAWAY on Gospel-Centred Parenting! This week we’re giving you the opportunity to win a Madlug backpack. If you win, you choose the colour and we’ll ship it to you, wherever you live in the world!
To enter, simply ‘LIKE’ our Facebook Page, and then ‘SHARE’ this post on Facebook.
Don’t worry if you’ve already liked our page, just share the post and you’ll still be entered (make sure you click ‘share’ on the original post on the Facebook page to be in with a chance of winning).
So why this backpack?
Madlug (short for ‘Make A Difference LUGgage’) is a business with a difference. For every bag purchased, “Madlug will give a bag to a child in foster care because no child should carry their life in a bin bag.”
The company was birthed after it’s owner, Dave Linton, attended a course about fostering. He watched a video in which a girl in a wheelchair said this:
Health Trusts don’t provide suitcases. Sometimes foster carers loan us a suitcase but more often our belongings are moved in black plastic bin bags and we lose our dignity”.
Dave decided to start a business which would produce high quality bags. When a customer purchases a bag, Madlug donates one to a child in foster care, recognising their worth and dignity, and giving them the respect that they deserve.
We think it’s a fantastic idea, and we wanted to raise awareness of it.
Please enter our competition to help spread the word, and bear Madlug in mind next time you need to buy a back pack, laptop bag, luggage bag or gym bag – they have a great range!
The winner will be announced on Tuesday 4th October, and can choose the colour of their choice.
Just to remind you:
To enter ‘LIKE’ our Facebook Page, and then ‘SHARE’ the original post from our Facebook page.
“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” – Jesus Christ, Matthew 7:12
What are you aiming for in life?
Please actually think about it. What are your goals? Your aspirations? Your dreams? What are you working towards?
I (Scott) write this as I sit on a train on my way back from a lovely trip to London to see the new Harry Potter play (incredible, in case you were wondering!….and there won’t be any spoilers so don’t look away now). This is a trip that has been planned for a long time – the theatre tickets were a gift from my dear friend, bought before Cathy and I were even expecting the baby. Cathy very kindly had the boys while I was away. The journeys have given me a rare opportunity to sit – on my own, without distraction – and think. It has made me realise how infrequently I do this.
So why don’t you take the opportunity to do it now. Answer that question above: what are you aiming for in life? Be honest with yourself. If you’re a Christian, you’ll know many of the right answers: to become more Christlike; to serve his people as well as you can with the gifts he’s given you; to work towards the growth of the kingdom; to love your family and point them to Jesus…
You’ll know the right answers, and you’ll no doubt be doing these things. But I want to challenge you today. Are godly ambitions what drive you and what you purposefully strive towards? Or are they simply things you hope will happen along the way?
If you’re wondering what this has to do with parenting then don’t worry – we’ll get there!
I used part of my journey to London to listen to some podcasts, including a really interesting TED talk. The talk, in large part, was aiming to challenge the listener to examine their ambitions for life.
The culture that we’re immersed in doesn’t simply neutrally exist around us. The culture around us promotes a worldview. We’re constantly bombarded with truth claims and messages about what matters in life – what it means to be successful; what we need to do, or own, or achieve to be happy; what gives a person significance. Many of these claims are contrary to the Christian worldview, and yet it is so easy to unquestioningly imbibe the messages that our culture feeds us.
For me, if you’ll permit a moment of honesty, the truth claim (or lie!) that I’m most easily deceived by is the lie that life and security is found in financial success.
As with all convincing lies, there has to be an element of truth. It is certainly true that having money can enable one to do lots of things that one wouldn’t be able to otherwise. It’s true that poverty robs people of life and is not good. But does it bring security? No – so many things can cause the foundation of financial success to crumble very quickly. And does it bring life? No – not the true ‘life to the full’ that Jesus offers.
What lies deceive you? Is it the pursuit of comfort and leisure? Or academic success? Beauty? Popularity? These things, and more, are all held up by our culture as ultimate things – things that we need for true life and happiness. So what lies deceive you?
As we see the lies that we’ve come to believe, we begin to see how we’ve shaped our lives around working towards achieving what these lies promise. They shape how we spend our time, what we think about, what we talk about. They shape our dreams.
It’s so important then that we take time to ponder this, to repent, to reevaluate our priorities and use of time and to reset the course of our lives again. To get back on to the path that we so easily fall from.
Let’s get more specific here and think about parenting – this is a Christian parenting blog, after all. What are your goals and aspirations for your family life, and for your children? Again, please try to take a moment to really think about this. Don’t just deceive yourselves with the right answers.
A helpful way to evaluate this might be to think about the following questions.
Just like us, our children are being constantly influenced by the truth claims of the world around them. But the biggest influence in the formation of their worldview, frighteningly, is you. And me. Their parents.
If we are buying in to the lies of our culture, then we will be passing those lies on to our children.
This post isn’t intended to induce guilt as a motivator for change. Guilt is a poor motivator.
As we’re confronted with our failures as parents, we must remember that there is grace for us. But more than that we (and our children, if they’re believers) have the Spirit in us to enable us to change.
It is grace that enables us to face hard truths about ourselves. It is in the context of full, free acceptance in Jesus that we are liberated to pursue change, to be honest about ourselves and to realign our gaze. We know that Jesus loves us as we are, but loves us enough to long for us to not stay as we are.
It is grace that enables us to dream big even when that exposes us in the present – it allows us to envisage a heart for ourselves and our children that is captivated by Christ and that finds true life in him, in stark and yet beautiful contrast to the world around us.
So if you’ve got this far in the blog post and have still not taken the time to examine your goals and ambitions in life, please do it now.
And then take the time to dream.
I write this at the end of a stressful day.
It’s early days of having two children. Our toddler is 2 years and 3 months old, our baby is 5 weeks old. Up till now I’ve had loads of support – Scott had two weeks paternity leave, our church family and my mum cooked us meals, my parents were around to do a multitude of tasks: to take us on outings, to occupy the toddler, to burp the baby, to bring in the laundry etc. It’s been wonderful – a breeze in fact, you could have even signed me up for the next kiddo! Until today that is…
Today I had a textbook toddler tantruming moment. Standard, you may think, but this happened while I was trying to breastfeed a distraught new-born baby in front of a crowd of people! Let me set the scene.
I was in our local shopping centre. I was pottering around the shops with the boys in the tandem pushchair. I could see that Boaz was starting to stir so I made a beeline for the play room (an empty shop with toys in – a brilliant idea – thank you Management of Middleton Grange!) I got the 2 year old out to play with the toys, and proceeded to feed the baby. “This is going well” I naively thought to myself.
And then the inevitable happened…
The toddler decided that he wanted to kiss the baby.
“What’s wrong with that?” you ask yourself. Well nothing I suppose. It’s really sweet that the toddler wants to kiss his brother. He’s very affectionate little boy who loves to cuddle, kiss, hold hands and tickle. But the issue is this – he’ also strong, big, enthusiastic and not at all aware of his own strength. He could quite literally kill his brother with kindness. In fact today I left the living room very briefly and came back to the heart-stopping scene of him spooning the baby (at first glance I thought he had laid on top of him!) It’s gorgeous behaviour in a way – I love that our toddler is excited about the new member of our family, but it’s terrifying too because he simply will not heed the instruction to “be gentle.”
Back to the story at hand…
So, the toddler decided that he wanted to kiss his brother while I’m breastfeeding. At first he kisses his head gently, “Good boy” I say, “What a lovely big brother you are.” But then the kisses get more fierce – he’s pressing down on the baby’s head, he’s trying to pull the baby out of my arms to give him a cuddle, “Gently! You must be gentle” I repeatedly say. And the whole thing escalates and the toddler and I are basically playing tug of war with the baby! With a raised voice I’m saying, “Stop that now – you’re hurting your brother!” The poor babe has had his feed interrupted, his body pulled about, and he’s pretty disgruntled – in fact he’s screaming at full volume to let the whole shopping centre know about it.
So now the toddler is whining loudly, the baby is screaming and I’m trying to us this moment as a moment of correction! The drama subsides and the scene settles again as I get the baby latched on and encourage the toddler to build a tower – but we’re all feeling a bit fractious.
The toddler momentarily builds a tower and then decides it’s time for another kiss! Well you can imagine how the scene goes – in fact it escalates so much this time that the toddler decides to go for the ultimate form of shopping centre rebellion – he decides that he’s going to leg it out of the play room and away from mummy as fast as he can! So here I am, baby half latched on chasing the run-away toddler while making threats in a very public place! (“Come here or we will be going straight home! Do you want to go home? I mean it, we won’t go to the park. We won’t go and see your friends.”)
With the aid of a sweet elderly lady I get a screaming toddler and baby strapped into the pram. The crowd of people in the play room give me sympathetic smiles as I make my dramatic exit – trying to look unphased but undoubtedly with cheeks burning.
On reflection, it’s quite a sweet and funny thing to have happened – one of those memories that I’ll look back on fondly when the boys have flown the nest. However, the stress and embarrassment of those five minutes ruined my whole day. As much as I tried to take my deep breaths, remember the gospel, and talk to myself about the reality of the situation (“it was only 5 minutes, it’s over now!”) the truth is, the day didn’t really seem as rosy after that. I was keen for the little ones to go to bed, to watch some tv, and have a glass of vino!
So, why did it ruin my day? Well, after reflecting on it, I think it ruined my day because of my PRIDE. Which also makes a fairly nifty acronym to summarise what was going on in my heart.
Pride – The whole situation dented my pride. I had been feeling pretty confident in my ability to look after the boys – thrilled in fact that it was going so well in comparison to how challenging I found looking after Reuben as a first time mum. It’s ok to rejoice in happy times and to be relieved when things are going well – but I definitely shouldn’t base my sense of self-worth on my performance, because it’s very easily shaken.
Reputation – I didn’t know any of the people in the play room. They were all strangers. And yet their looks (whether judgmental or sympathetic) were just mortifying! I wanted them to think well of me and disliked the fact that I didn’t look like a “sorted” mum with two angelic children. Let’s face it – it’s much more pleasant to have strangers say to you, “what beautiful children” and “you look wonderful, I can’t believe you’re out of the house!” But why on earth should my reputation matter with strangers? Back to the pride thing again – it feels good to put confidence in our own ability, it panders to our sinful desire for self-reliance.
Identity – In that moment I was placing my identity in being a good mum. That’s why I wanted my reputation to be that of a “sorted mum” in the eyes of the people around me. That’s why it hurt to have my pride dented. But surely there’s a better identity for me than that of a good mum?
Discipline – confession time! One area of parenting that I find really hard and feel fairly insecure about is the area of discipline. I understand the principles behind it -I love my toddler and therefore don’t want him to be an utter rogue, it’s good for him to have boundaries, he needs to learn to respect authority etc. And yet I find it so hard to discipline him consistently. Partly because I love my own comfort (it’s easier to overlook things for a quiet life) but largely because it’s not really in my temperament. I hate confrontation and conflict. I’m more of a flight than fight kind of person. So discipline is a real challenge for me. But I do try.
One thing that I know is really important is showing children the consequences of their actions. So usually I only threaten things that I can follow through on. Not this time however. I threatened that we wouldn’t go to the park and see our friends (the toddler was really excited about this), and I thought that this would be enough to stop him running away from me. I offered him a simple choice – come back to mummy and we’ll go to the park. Continue to run away and we’ll go straight home. I wasn’t banking on him continuing to run away! But he did, and that meant we had to go straight home. I immediately regretted my words – I now was looking at spending three hours in the house with a naughty toddler before bedtime. I couldn’t cope with the thought of it, and so, kicking myself, I went back on my word and took him to the park despite his disobedience. I felt the guilt of “discipline failure” as well as feeling upset that my son wanted to disobey me.
Embarrassment – the whole thing was so embarrassing! The combination of it being so public and so stressful made it very embarrassing.
But here’s the good news.
Those five minutes didn’t need to ruin my day. Why? Because there are five words that can redeem the whole situation.
“There is now no condemnation”
Romans 8:1
There is now no condemnation for me because I am in Christ Jesus.
Because of Jesus I don’t need to listen to condemning voices from within or from outside of myself, because the reality is I am not condemned in God’s sight. Far from being condemned, I am forgiven for my sins and failings. Far from being condemned, I am clothed with the very righteousness of Christ – making me pure and blameless in God’s eyes. Far from being condemned, I have the Spirit of Sonship within me to remind me of my new status and to change me so that my life increasingly reflects that reality. I no longer need to base my self-worth on my performance as a mum. My performance is irrelevant – it’s Jesus’ performance that counts.
Because I am clothed with Christ’s righteousness my reputation is that I am pure, spotless and sinless in God’s sight (how extraordinary!) My reputation before him means that my reputation in all other spheres of life pale into insignificance. He looks on me with love and devotion. A royal princess in his household. A daughter under his care. Part of his beloved bride, the church. That’s my identity. Once I see my reputation before him as being all the above (and much more beside!), then I realise that my identity is something much greater and more satisfying than being a “good mum”. So while the 5 minute incident was a bit embarrassing, I can get over it and still rejoice as I enjoy this unshakeable, permanent new identity that I have in Christ Jesus. Jesus’ work of salvation for sinners is indelible.
All this applies to the discipline issue too. I am not the perfect parent (gasps of shock from all of you I know) but none of us are. None of us can match up to God in his perfect parenting. He along judges issues impartially, he alone is without sin and therefore he alone is the only perfect disciplining parent. But the good news is that he doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve. He doesn’t condemn us, but gives us grace and mercy – he does this even when we love our own comfort over the well being of the kids he’s entrusted to us, and he does it when we are harsh and unfeeling. There’s no condemnation for us imperfect parents – hallelujah!
And wonderfully, the Good News isn’t just that we get forgiveness and righteousness. But that we get these things, and we get the power to change. Romans 8 talks lots about those who are in Christ Jesus having the Holy Spirit. The Spirit works in us to renew our mind and give us new desires (v5) and he helps us put sin to death in our lives (v.13). This is truly good news – I can change to become a better parent with a less-messy heart because God is at work within me.
So there we have it. 5 minutes that ruined my day. But they didn’t need to. There is now no condemnation.
If you’re enjoying our blog then why not subscribe to our mailing list to get our weekly updates direct to your inbox?
How do you choose a child’s name?
It’s a big decision isn’t it. After all, they’re going to be stuck with whatever name you give them for the whole of their lives. It’s one thing that you’ll do for your child that you know will have lifelong significance.
As Cathy and I chose our boys’ names, we felt this weight of responsibility.
So how do you go about picking a name for a child? Here are some ideas if you’re looking for a name, or just some thoughts if you’re interested in the topic.
It seems to us that there are a few different factors that can play into the choice.
* We originally wrote this post in 2016 including photographs and the names of our children in it. Since then we have decided to take down photographs of our children from our website and we don’t refer to them by name on our blog anymore. Click here if you would like to read our reasoning why.
This blog post still has some helpful ideas for naming children though, so we’ve kept it on the blog. We are now expecting our third child, so we are going through the name-picking process all over again!*
If you saw our recent thank you video, you may have spotted Scott’s regional accent (it’s hard to miss). Cathy has a generic but mild northern English accent, but Scott’s is a fairly broad Hartlepool accent. His accent means that various vowel sounds are… let’s say unusual. As such, Cathy requires all potential names to go through the “Scott’s accent test”. Many lovely names have hit the cutting room floor after this ruthless test!
When choosing names, some go for what’s popular at the time. In case you’re interested, here are the top 10 most popular boys names in the UK in 2016 so far:
Yes you read that correctly – number 6 is Arlo! We’ve literally never even heard of that name. We must be living in a bubble.
The top 10 UK girls names in 2016 so far, if you were wondering, are:
So popularity is one way to go when picking a name. Others go to the other extreme and try to go for something obscure. It’s a way of ensuring there won’t be 10 other children in the playground with the same name as your little one.
There are other options too. Family names. We’ve gone for this with middle names. Our eldest’s middle name is taken from Cathy’s dad’s middle name. Our youngest boy’s middle name was Scott’s late Grandfather’s middle name.
We think it’s lovely for our children to have a sense of rootedness and connection to their biological family. Obviously their surname naturally does this, but we liked including a Christian family name too. Inheriting the surname is inevitable, but choosing to give your child the name of a family member can be a touching gesture for the family member you’ve chosen and for those who are closest to them.
Some friends of ours have chosen to include a virtue as one of their children’s names for each of their three children. We think this is a lovely idea. To take a virtue that you’d love for your child to display or to appreciate and make it part of their name is great idea. So our friends have ‘Joy’, ‘Hope’ and ‘Mercy’ as part of their children’s names. There’s so many more you could go for…
Another popular option for choosing your children’s names is to base it on the meaning of the name. This was how Cathy received her name. Cathy’s mum had a difficult pregnancy with Cathy, almost losing her and having to have a lot of bed rest. All babies are precious, but of course this heightened Cathy’s parent’s sense of how precious she was to them. As such they gave her the name “Catherine Amy”, meaning “beloved and precious” (although google says it means “pure”).
As we’ve already mentioned, we chose for our boys to have family names as their middle names.
But for their first names we decided to go for names of people from the Bible.
How did we choose which characters to go for?
Well it was partly people with names we liked – but that’s a given.
Beyond that though, we looked for two things. We looked for people with character traits that we hoped our boys would emulate. And we looked for people who pointed to Jesus in a way that made our hearts sing.
Our eldest is named after a protective big brother (given the fact he’s a big brother!) – he was protective even when his brothers didn’t deserve it, a trait we hope he’ll have. The character he’s named after had lots of reasons to throw his sibling under the bus. But as a protective older brother he stood up for his younger sibling, shielding him.
We pray that our son may well be the same – willing to lay aside his claim to getting what he feels he deserves when his siblings wrong him – willing to stand up for his siblings (and others around him) even when they don’t deserve it. Willing to control his anger and desire for revenge, willing to absorb that hurt in himself for the good of others, and willing to forgive those who wrong him.
And of course this beautifully reminds us of Jesus – the one who went to the greatest lengths to rescue us. In our sin we have wronged Jesus far more than anyone else has been wronged. Despite this, Jesus did all that was necessary to protect us from the far more just punishment that was coming our way. Jesus actually took our place. Jesus, the true older brother, died in our place so that he could rescue us and take us back to our Father. How wonderful!
Our second son is named after a really wonderful character.
This Bible character is a man of integrity. In a world where women were very often exploited and mistreated, he chose to care for a woman who was about as vulnerable as you could get. He chose to care for and graciously provide for her. Despite her weak position and despite the fact that she wasn’t even one of God’s people and had nothing to offer him, he lavishly provided for her and redeemed her.
We would love our son to emulate this. We live in a world where it’s so easy to care about yourself at the expense of others: to look down on those in need; to disparage the plight of the refugee; to make consumer choices that exploit the poorest and most needy. We pray that our son won’t just do the easy thing. We pray that, like his namesake, he will stand out from the crowd by fighting for the most needy in this world. We pray that he would seek to protect the vulnerable, to stand against injustice and to honour those who most will dishonour.
And once again, what’s most wonderful about this character is not his achievements and character, but the achievements and the character of the one he points us to. We too were in a desperate plight – in need of a redeemer who would lift us out of the poverty of our sin. We needed a protector and provider when we’re not just spiritually vulnerable, but spiritually bankrupt. And that’s exactly what Jesus, the great, great, great… great grandson of this character did. Jesus is the one who this character pointed to, who will never exploit the needy, but instead allowed himself to be exploited for our sake’s.
So there we have it. What names did you choose for your children, and why? We’d love to hear your story in the comments.
We’ve all read those parenting blog posts “7 steps to a contented baby”, “10 totally terrific tips to tame your toddler” and so on – you know the sort. They tend to be lists of more things that you ought to do (or not do) to “sort out” your children. Usually, they just leave you feeling guilty and inadequate.
Don’t worry – this isn’t one of them.
There’s some great stuff out there in the parenting blogosphere, but there’s also some content that leaves you feeling like you’re failing as a parent – that your parenting is just one mistake after another.
If you feel like that, then what you really need to hear is the gospel.
So, this week we thought we’d begin a series of parenting mistakes to avoid. But these won’t be simply more guilt-inducing posts (we hope!) Instead, we believe the gospel can bring a sense of liberation and freedom as we seek to parent, by breaking through some of the simple mistakes that weigh us down as we navigate the tumultuous world of Christian parenting.
So let’s get started with the first.
This is such an easy trap to fall in to.
You notice that mum who always seems to be so “together”. She’s made-up, has a plentiful supply of home-made, organic, healthy snacks and her children are so well presented.
Or you see that dad who, alongside holding down a busy and stressful job, seems to have the energy to invent crazy-fun activities with his children as well as thought-through times of family devotion that are the highlight of his children’s day.
Or you notice that mum at church who seems so good at gospelling her children when they’re naughty. She’s so calm when her children tantrum. She seems to be able to juggle parenting, reading the Bible with others in church, sharing the gospel with her friends, all while keeping a tidy home.
Or… what is it for you? What do you spot in other parents that makes you feel lacking, somehow?
It’s okay to aspire to grow and develop as a parent. But if you’re burdened by a sense of guilt or inadequacy because of the parents you see around you, then it’s time to stop playing the comparison game.
Why?
Because you are inadequate as a parent.
Our guess is that’s not where you thought this was going. The usual response to our sense of inadequacy would be to say something like “you’re trying your best, and that’s all you can do”, or “you’re doing a brilliant job” or “those other people are only putting up a front – look behind the scenes and you’ll see they’re no better than you”. The thing is though, all of these comforts still leave us with a nagging sense of guilt.
But it’s true. You are inadequate as a parent.
You do mess up. You do fail. So do we – a lot! And so does every other parent. Not a single parent has got this parenting thing down to a fine art.
Well actually, that’s not totally true. There is one parent who has. His name is God. The Father is the perfect parent.
We want to highlight two things about our Father that bring us comfort when we’re confronted with our sense of missing the mark as parents.
Here’s the first: God is a kind father to your children who cares for them even more than you do.
If you look at other parents and wish you were doing a better job of parenting, then know this truth: God cares for your children, and he will always act for their good. He’s the better parent that you’re not able to be. So if you’re going to compare yourself to anyone then compare yourself to him, and when you see just how far you fall short then know that your children aren’t left wanting. In him your children have a parent who will never drop the ball. That takes the pressure off your shoulders – that’s a truth that can help you to sleep at night.
“God cares for your children, and he will always act for their good.”
And know too (and here’s the second truth to cling to) that this God is also your parent, who has dealt with your inadequacy at the cross. He’s seen it, he’s borne it, and he has dealt with it. You don’t need to keep dealing with it by turning it over in your heart when your flaws are thrown into sharp relief by the parents around you. You are inadequate, yes. So are they – but that doesn’t make it any better. You’ve still failed your children even if they have too. But God forgives you, loves you, has dealt with your failure and can use whatever is going on for good, in the end. He’s in control.
So don’t be burdened by an unnecessary sense of guilt. Bask in the glorious sunshine of the gospel that has bought your forgiveness and freedom, and get on with the job of parenting knowing that you have a Saviour and a Father who supplies where you lack and forgives when you fail.
Earlier in the year we had the joy of attending the lovely wedding of some friends of ours.
Reu is at an age where he doesn’t really appreciate the finer details of weddings yet. He didn’t really see much of the ceremony – he was intent on swiping the pretty sequins off the table next to us, and playing with the bouquets of flowers that were attached to the barriers. In the end daddy took him out to play during the talk so that we weren’t too disruptive!
But one day, when he’s a bit older and more civilised (will that day ever come?!) we look forward to chatting to him and Bo about the significance of marriage. We wanted to share some ponderings to perhaps help you chat to your children next time you’re at a wedding.
It was such a special day, that reminded us of even more special realities.
As we watched the stunning bride walk down the aisle in her white dress – her Father beaming and delighted – it pointed to the greater meaning of marriage. As we saw the groom with eyes filled with wonder and awe at the beauty of his bride – it pointed to an even more magnificent love story. As we heard our friends vow to love, cherish and honour each other for the rest of their lives – their vows of commitment spoke of the unconditional love of another. Weddings point us to a wonderful reality embedded in the history and future of the universe – the thrilling reality that God loves the people he has made in an even more intense way than how a groom loves his bride. All human weddings are a picture of a greater love.
When the boys are older, we’ll be able to tell them that the first wedding happened at the very dawn of time. After God created the cosmos for his glory and our enjoyment, he created a companion especially for Adam. The first marriage was similar to every other marriage since. God the Father presented his daughter to Adam. He walked her down the aisle to her groom. God’s heart was full of excitement and satisfaction as he gave his beautiful daughter to her husband.
“The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”
That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
Genesis 2:18 – 26
And we’ll be able to tell them that the love that a husband and wife have for each other (whether mummy and daddy – or any other bride and groom that they see) are a picture of Jesus and his church. We’ll be able to explain to them that Jesus loves the church deeply – that he loves his people so much that he died for their cleansing. That Jesus makes it possible for his bride to wear a sparkling, snow-white wedding gown of righteousness. You see Jesus, like prince charming in Cinderella (but in a much more wonderful way), made it possible for the church to discard her rags of poverty and disgrace and be clothed in a ball-gown fit for a Queen.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body.” For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Ephesians 5:25-33
And then we’ll be able to tell him that there is a wedding day to come, where we, the church, the bride of Christ, will be united to our wonderful bridegroom Jesus. At long last, we will live with our God – never to be separated again. We will enjoy the ultimate wedding day as the beloved of Jesus and we will feast and celebrate at a banquet fit for royalty – for that it what we have married into.
“Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,
“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
the Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”
Revelation 19:6-9
Weddings are such wonderfully happy occasions – entire days set apart to celebrate covenantal love. They feel so indulgent don’t they? We wear beautiful outfits, we revel in the affection that the bride and groom have for each other, we feast on cake, we laugh and reminisce, we drink delicious wine and we dance the night away. That’s totally appropriate behaviour when we are celebrating a wedding. How wonderful that the joy that we feel at a wedding day is just a drop in the ocean compared to the joy that we’ll feel on our wedding day to Christ.