How much time do we spend with our kiddos a day? How much time do you intentionally set aside to be home with them through a week? How about a year? What about through their growing up years? Who gets the most amount of time with our children in their day to day lives?
I would venture to say that if we’re being honest with ourselves many of us would answer that we don’t spend enough time with them and that someone else spends more time with them. Whether that’s a babysitter, teacher, school system, church – who knows pretty much anyone.
Now who’s responsible for making sure our children are raised properly? You know to be people of humility, integrity, faith, respect, kindness, generous, and all those cool attributes. I sure hope that you said that you as the parent are responsible for making sure that your child is raised properly!
Unfortunately there are far too many parents in the world today who are parenting by proxy. They’re letting someone else raise their kids. From assuming the schools are teaching everything they need to know to just letting the church teach them about faith matters to letting screens occupy them while we’re busy doing other things to letting the coach teach them about obedience – we have a tendency to pawn our parenting responsibilities off on someone else.
Now before those of you in two working household families get all bent here, I’m not saying that you have to homeschool your children. Not against it by any means but definitely not for everyone. I’m not saying you can’t have a job outside the home or both of you work. As a matter of fact there is something powerful that a child learns when they see mom and dad working and still engaged in their lives.
But I am saying that parenting is your responsibility not someone else’s! Here’s a quick example of what I’m trying to convey. I recently had a conversation with a group of people from a church. We were talking about the role of the pastor in the lives of the children in the church family. I want to be very clear. I am not a proxy parent for anyone’s kiddos. I’ve done enough damage as a less than perfect parent to my own three children. This church was saying that they want their pastor to be the one who is the primary teacher of faith to the children in the church.
Well, I don’t parent by proxy and I don’t think the pastor should be the faith builder in a child’s life. We’re to teach them but we’re not the one’s who are primarily responsible for the faith development of children. I also don’t think it’s the pastor’s job to do the whole catechism teaching bit for the youth of the church. I think if the pastor does his job rightly, then the parents will be the primary teachers of this to their children. Pastor should most certainly be involved and active and encouraging but the parent should be the primary discipler of the children.
This analogy is true for other areas like math and science and grammar and economics and you name it! The parent cannot shove the kids to someone or something else to teach them. That’s not parenting. All of these other things are assets and tools in the raising of children but they cannot replace what it means to be a loving and true parent.
Look teachers can only teach so much. Pastors can only reach so far. Coaches can be great role models but are limited. You are the parent. You can’t parent your kiddos if you’re never home. You can’t teach them the faith if you don’t open your mouth and teach them. No one is responsible for the development of your children but you. It’s time our culture stopped trying to parent by proxy.
