A Better Metaphor for Motherhood
As a young mom, I remember obsessing over a new chore chart or a new way to do family devotions—I believed that a new system would calm the chaos, impart biblical wisdom, and make sure that we were all on the right track. I hoped that a new organizational method would ensure thoughtful, kind children—that we were raising them “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4).
This isn’t to knock organizational systems, but when we talk about parenting in terms of the “right track,” we’re using metaphorical language. “The right track” is more akin to the assembly line of a machine than it is to the metaphors for growth Jesus himself used.
Think for a moment about the ways you gauge your own motherhood success: Are your children on track? Are they measuring up to what’s expected? Are you being sure to pour into them? Do you feel guilty for ways that you are not putting guardrails around technology or friends?
The way we talk about parenting matters. While it’s important to take a look back and evaluate, and it’s important to tend and care (and to create good limits around things like technology!), so much of how we think and talk about our mothering journey starts with us as the primary actors.
Yet in so many places in Scripture, we’re reminded that the primary metaphors for growth as a Christian are agricultural—and they start with God as the Gardener. We are to be like healthy trees planted by streams of water (Ps. 1). Jesus reminds us to remain in him as branches remain in the vine (John 15). Agricultural metaphors ultimately remind us that, just like for plants, people have different seasons. And growth isn’t always limited to what we can see on the outside.
If we use parent-oriented metaphors when we talk about parenting—rather than the ones Scripture uses about God being the Sower, the vinedresser, and owner of the vineyard—then we effectively put ourselves into the position of prime mover and shaker. (And if you’ve been in my house when I’m in that mode, it’s not a pretty look!).
Likewise, if we default to mechanized language when we think and discuss our parenting, we’re apt to think that both parents and children need to be in a constant state of upward mobility and production! We should be firing on all cylinders!
But when we think about parenting in terms of God being the ultimate loving parent and Gardener, we can:
Relax, knowing that perfection or a checked-off list is not the goal of our family time or personal time with Jesus;
Rest assured that when our children or those we love seem as if their faith is in a fallow season, it is God (not our nagging) that will grow what he has promised to grow;
Work with discipline and faithfulness to do what helps good seeds grow—watering and tending to the hearts of ourselves and our children each day (but recognizing that we are not responsible to manufacture growth).
As three of my four children are teenagers (and my fourth is a tween), it’s been challenging to move from the moment-by-moment instructing and training to more of a coaching role. I’ve made a million mistakes. It’s still not natural. Yet, I take great hope that the telos of my parenting is not my personal record. As I grow, change, repent, fail, and keep showing up, it is God who has promised he will do a good work in both me and my children—and it is he who will bring it to completion. God is the Gardener. God is the author of my children’s stories. God is the one who is true to his covenant promises, and my job is to witness to his work in the world.
That means that, as we change parenting seasons—from the little years, to the teen years, to the empty nest years—we continually practice giving up control. (We never had it in the first place!) And the language we use in these parenting transitions matters; if we hope to control our children, then they are machines. But if we are fellow pilgrims on the way, then we will grow into their companions. If we recognize our parenting verbs as agricultural—to tend, to care, to notice, to plant, to water—we’re less likely to use our children to buttress our own reputations.
It's not my role to manufacture faith—in myself or my children. It is my job, as a fellow branch grafted into Jesus, to simply remain in Christ. Doing so is testament and witness to my children, and to the world, that it is God who works through us to live and do more than we could ask or imagine (Eph. 3:20). Then, it is he who gets the glory.
