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: Life is hard. God is good. We need each other. The Sparrow's Home is a place for gathering and sharing about all things 'home'.
Hugh Hefner died last week. While I don’t revel in his death, the phrase ‘good riddance’ did cross my mind. Hefner contributed heavily to bringing pornography to the mainstream, making it more easily accessible and normalized. Grieving his death never entered my mind.
What did make me sad was hearing Dennis Prager speak about his father subscribing to Playboy. He said that he felt no shame over it. After all, his dad had been faithful to his mother for seventy-some years.
I heard a story recently about a young man who was out in his father’s watermelon field working, with strict instructions not to eat any of the fruit. Giving in to temptation, he attempted to hide the evidence by burying the remains off in another part of the field. He was sure he’d gotten away with it until his father noticed watermelons growing where they didn’t belong. The evidence was irrefutable. Undeniable. Once the fruit appeared, the son could not hide that he had buried the seeds in just that place.
I don’t consider myself a prude. But I do feel like Jeremiah when he wrote that the people –who God was about to punish, by the way– had ‘forgotten how to blush’.
It is really not my intent to become a movie reviewer here. And after writing about my emotional reaction to Wonder Woman recently, I didn’t plan on writing about any other movies anytime soon. Then I went to see Spiderman: Homecoming on Friday.
If you’re looking for advice for being a good dad, there are a lot of books out there. A quick search on Amazon brings up titles like How to Father, 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know, and the classic Dude, You’re Going to Be a Dad.
But can I tell you…no matter what parenting technique you subscribe to, unless you are a total (ahem) donkey, you’re going to do just fine as long as you remember that your kids need your presence.
Not want, ask for, seek out…need. Can it feel awkward sometimes? Yes. Will you be doing things you wouldn’t pick to do. Absolutely. Might you fail miserably in trying to connect with them. Quite possibly. But God will bless your effort.
Did you see the article going around recently about parenting teens? It implored parents to stop doing things for their teen in order to grow independence and maturity. Maybe you even shared or ‘liked’ it. It made some valid points.
But it also kind of broke my heart.
Don’t wake your kids up. Don’t pack their lunch. Don’t bring them things they’ve forgotten or fill out paperwork for them. Don’t ‘meddle’ in their academics.
Here’s the thing, parents… as our sweet babies grow into smelly, sassy teens, we do need to change the way we parent. We need to be intentional about developing that independence and maturity. And that can mean hard lessons, consequences, and ‘tough love’. But there are a few major problems I see with advising parents to stop doing these things for their kids altogether.
Do you practice strewing? If you don’t strew, you’re missing some teachable moments with your kids. You probably strew and don’t even know it. Are you asking: What is strewing?!
Strewing is simply consciously leaving material around the house for children to discover and engage with.
One of the places I like to strew is in the bathroom…captive audience, you see. One of my nieces said once that she loved using the bathroom at my house because she always learned something. (At the time, I was swapping out pages with the Greek and Latin roots to English words in a clear page protector hung on the wall).
Depending on the ages of your kids, you can strew building toys, art supplies, or puzzles. Lately, I’ve been strewing books. And I have found a fantastic resource for them: Candlewick Press.