The Most Wonderful Time of the Year? Really?

After all these years, it still rings in my ears every September.  An office supply store in our area used to run a commercial featuring a parent waltzing happily through the store buying school supplies and singing ecstatically “It’s the most wonderful time of the year . . . !”  Many a mom, often including me, echoed the sentiment. Of course, for moms sending kids off to daycare or preschool or putting kids on a school bus for the first time felt differently. I remember that, too. 

The start of another school year is emotion-laden. Yes, in many cases, there is joy. But just behind that comes another reality: The 3-11 shift. With the start of school comes the return to car pool runs, after-school sports or other activities (depending on kids’ ages and family choices), and always—always—the homework grind. How does one mother manage the needs of all four (or more—or even less) of her kids and still devote to each one what they particularly need? Especially if they range from 2 to 12 (or somewhere on either side). And even more especially if any of them have special needs. All the while, of course, dispensing snacks and preparing (or at least pondering) dinner and preventing tragedy in the lives of young crawlers and climbers or exploration-oriented toddlers. Mission Impossible. The real one.   

And somehow buried in all this sentiment and whirlwind of activities is a deep-down sense of this being like New Year’s. A chance for a fresh start, a clean slate, a new-and-improved way to manage it all. Good motivation to a point. But also, yet another way for moms to feel not only overwhelmed but also inadequate, inferior, never enough. There’s extra need to guard your heart and beware the social media monsters who “have it all together”—or at least present that part of their reality (often inadvertently) and lure you to the sinkholes of comparison and feelings of failure.

A perfect time, I believe, to introduce you to my new favorite parenting book: Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family by Paul David Tripp. If the author’s name sounds familiar, you may remember (or also be reading) my current favorite devotional, New Morning Mercies, also by Paul David Tripp. I have to admit that I approached this book with a tiny bit of skepticism because I feel ever-defensive about anything that presents unrealistic goals or places an unnecessary load of guilt on the backs of already overburdened moms.  No need to worry here. The book has (or at least I hope it also has on other readers) the opposite effect: It is very freeing.

First a caveat that the author is very clear about. This is not a handy how-to guide to help you solve in practical ways each daily parenting dilemma. Rather, it offers what Tripp calls a “big gospel parenting worldview” that can alter your basic understanding about your role and responsibilities as a mom. For those of you who have been or are in Mom to Mom, I honestly (and prayerfully) hope it feels like a reminder of many of the premises of Mom to Mom teaching.

Tripp is a very good writer. When I sat down to list favorite concepts and quotes, I filled a whole page. There are far too many to include here, but all the more encouragement for you to get this book and read it yourself (and with your husband as well if you are currently married and he will join you). The underlying theme of the book, as it always is with Tripp, is grace. As recipients of God’s grace we are called to be tools of grace in the lives of our children. First, we must clearly understand our own need of grace—not only foundationally for our salvation but also in our daily, hourly, need for “moment by moment grace” (p. 70) to be wise and Godly parents.      

I said the book was freeing. You really need to read it all the way through to understand that. But I know that, for some of you, reading a whole book may sound like yet one more mission impossible. So may I suggest that you start by reading his introduction on our being “ambassador” parents rather than “owner” parents. Then read my three favorite chapters (“Calling,” “Grace,” and “Inability”). By then you may be hooked.  But I hope you will at least be encouraged.

Just a few favorite quotes that I hope will encourage you even in this moment:

“. . . aloneness is a cruel lie that will defeat us every time” (p. 182)

“in every moment you are parenting, you are being parented” (p. 187)

“God never calls you to a task without giving you what you need to do it. He never sends you without going with you.” (p. 33)

“Good parenting lives at the intersection of a humble admission of your personal powerlessness and a confident rest in the power and grace of God.” (p. 69)

Reminders that are good for any time of year.  Starting right now.