I heard a story many years ago that shaped my thoughts on parenting. Please forgive me for my memory if you’ve heard the original, and excuse my lack of reference to the source. The story goes something like this:
Observant Parenting
A woman asked to meet with a friend of hers to discuss her difficulties with her teenager. The friend agreed, as long as the woman was willing to have the conversation on a little boat out at sea. She had plans to go whale watching that day.
The troubled mother was pouring out her heart when her friend interrupted to point out a whale surfacing. She turned, but was too late to see it. The mother continued with her tale of how her teenager never talked to her, and how they were drifting apart, and how impossible he was to understand. A few minutes later, the friend saw the whale surfacing again, a little further on, but again the mother missed it.
After this happened a third time, the mother telling the tale complained, “Why do I always miss seeing this whale? It’s always coming up in a different spot!”
At this, her friend explained, “Whale watching is a bit like parenting. We’re never quite sure when they’re going to pop up. But if we’re patient, we’ll be there in the right place when they’re exposed and vulnerable. The trick is to be observant and patient - before long you’ll start to know them and recognise the path they’re on. Then you'll be able to predict where they’ll pop up next. Most importantly, when we do have the opportunity to see them and they’re vulnerable, we need to make sure we don’t take a shot at harpooning them! That is certain to ensure they’ll never pop up again when you’re around if they can help it!
I just love the concept of observant and intentional parenting. Gosh, to think of it, God is amazing in the way that He sees each person. There are countless stories, both in the bible, as well as around us, of God noticing small details in people’s lives.
I think one of my favourite stories of all time is found in Genesis 16. A servant woman is treated cruelly but God sees. This woman is made to lie with her master on his wife’s behalf, in order to produce an heir for them. Her jealous mistress mistreats the pregnant slave to the extent that the slave girl runs away into the desert. This woman has no expectation that she is worth anything in society, and yet she is found by God in the desert, and he comforts her, gives a promise to her son and sends her back to her home. The servant girl is so astounded at being noticed – at being SEEN – that in Genesis 16:13 it says she “gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” It is such a lonely thought to consider that we might go about our life in an invisible state of not being noticed by anybody. We want someone to SEE us, to know us, to have observed our life for the simple reason that they like watching us.
God has so much time for us. He has even gone to great lengths to make sure that nothing hinders us from being able to approach Him at any moment and speak to Him about any subject. Though He had to go to hell and back to give us this privilege, yet He considered it worth it.
God knows us intimately, even to the point of knowing when each hair falls off our heads, because the bible says He keeps count (Matthew 10:30). And we thought it was sentimental to keep our baby’s first curl!
If one of our chief purposes of being parents is to bring God glory by reflecting how He parents us, then we need to get this right. We need to be intentional about knowing our children. We need to observe them and make every effort to understand them. It might require studying psychology and reading books. It might require going on courses. It will definitely require a lot of watching, a lot of listening and a lot of time. And it will definitely require God’s wisdom and insight.
Our children are all different, and, what’s more, they’re changing all the time. This is not something we get ‘figured out’. For me, this is one of the most exciting parts of parenting. People often ask me if I feel unfulfilled because I am no longer using the professional degree that I studied. They ask if I don’t miss using my brain in that way. I think that is such a limited view on parenting! At work, I had to master certain skills so that I would always deliver excellence. Once you’re good at something, you have to keep doing it so that you’re an asset to the company. Here at home, the work is way too challenging and diverse to get everything right all the time! I am constantly being stretched and tested and having to go back to the drawing board to come up with new methods of approaching different problems. I love it! It feels like I cracked the jackpot when my pre-teen understands in her heart what I’ve been trying to get through to her, or when I finally help my three-year-old to understand which colour is blue and which is green.