Negative ghost rider, the pattern is full

Blogger note: Before reading this soapbox blog post, please understand that we have many positive people in our lives who say positive things to us about being parents and having children. This post in no way accuses anyone specific we know or any specific instance that might have happened. This post is based on a general perception that only I, the author of this post, has gotten from the world around us.

When you tell everyone that you and your wife are expecting a child, you will never EVER in your life get more unsolicited advice from people than about parenting. You will be told about everything from the pregnancy, the birth, the feedings, the terrible twos, the no life, no money, and the ALWAYS no sleep! After hearing all of this, you start to think that everyone wants you to hate it and be a big fat failure. I’ve come to realize that we spoiled Americans are inherently negative towards parenting. Yes, people will tell you there is nothing like it in the world, children are amazing, being a parents is the greatest job, blah blah blah. But right after they say that, they will follow it up with “just wait! your life as you know it is over!” It’s like people can’t wait for you to be as miserable being a parent as they are.

I’m a naturally positive person and my wife is what some might call a realist. I’ve sensed from the beginning of this journey to fatherhood, that my job as the husband and leader of our household is to keep my wife in the right frame of mind. She gets 100 times more advice and comments from people than I ever will. Sadly, most of it is not good and people can be just downright hateful without knowing they are. Do we think raising a child will be easy? No. Do we think we’ll have all the answers? No way. We’re taking child classes through our church and plan to keep taking them through each stage of the child’s life. If we thought we had all of the answers we wouldn’t spend so much time taking classes and reading so many books.

Our worldview is different from many of our friends and even family members. We take a biblical view of the world and it definitely clashes with what our culture tells us today with how to raise our children. We both have talked about the looks we’ll get and the comments to our faces or behind our backs about some of the things we will do with our child. It’s a brewing storm I’m sure will come from people we know but we both must stand up for what we believe, what we’ve agreed upon as parents, and not what the fallen world around us says.

These last few months I find myself opening my bible at my desk more than once, just to turn to 127th Psalm verse 3-5.

Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.

Right there from the word of God I’m told children are a blessing, a gift from God! Blessed is the man who has many! But do we as a society in America today believe that? Anyone today that has more than 2 kids are told that they’re crazy by our culture. And the same people who love to say “just you wait till your kid is here, your life is over!” are the same ones who take a cultural view of children instead of a biblical view. We don’t need that negativity but just hearing it reaffirms our beliefs that we’re on the right path.

Our child is a gift from God, he knew the child before it was created in my wife’s womb. He has great plans for our child and we intend to honor God by giving the child a biblical home. Why would we look at parenting as a negative experience that “ends our lives” when so many other people in this world pray everyday for a child that will never come? Why would I tell anyone anything negative about raising that gift? We won’t be the world’s best parents, we probably won’t crack the top 50% of good parents. The one thing we will do is to continue to believe that our child is a blessing, a son of Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob, a child of God. We are just grateful our heavenly father has chosen us to be his or her parents. So I say keep bringing the negative, and we’ll keep praying for guidance and wisdom to do the moral thing and ignore the culture around us.