Confessions of a Busy Mom

What started this train of thought:
 http://www.air1.com/blog/brant/post/2013/03/20/The-Krusty-Sage-Your-Kids-Dont-Need-Your-Stupid-Success-Track.aspx


This is pretty much my response, changed in a few spots where I was directly addressing the blog author: 

I usually agree with Brant Hansen's blog almost completely.  This time I am not so sure.  I think that the underlying point is valid... my job as a parent is absolutely to build men of God, not superstars.  I think a lot of this depends on your child, and your family and how old they are and the way THEY should grow. (I would be wrong to try to make my children grow into mini-mes.. they are so different than I am.  So when I want to be home having hot cocoa and doing puzzles, they want to be out shooting hoops and socializing.  So we compromise. It would be equally as wrong to push an introverted child into being class president.) 

So my concern falls into three areas.  Yes, they don't need MY success plan, but they do need to be trained.  Part of that training is to learn to learn - to be challenged and to put in the work and the effort and do their best.  That is going to look different for each child.  Two of my kids excel academically, so they need to be challenged academically. One struggles, so my expectations for him are not as "rigorous" It is good for them to be trained in different situations and different ways.

Second, so much of this part of life ( I have teens) is them learning to be their own person while in the safety of my care.  To do that, they have to go do, go be, go try.  And be able to come home and relax, process and regroup, and then go again.  They are testing out their identities as learners and athletes and leaders and musicians and friends and group members and Christians in a world that is, increasingly, not. I really believe that they should do that while under the safety of my authority instead of having them jump off to college having never stretched those identity muscles. 

Finally, and maybe mostly, is that what I think I hear you saying is Relax! they are going to be all right!  However, I see a LOT of legalism regarding this cropping up.  Maybe it is just where I live.  But it seems that parents are knee jerking in response to exactly the busy kid culture we live in, and going totally legalistic in the other direction.  If withdrawing from all but a few church-approved and parent directed activities is right for them, then it must be the only answer for everyone.  And, honestly, that just makes me mad. The bondage of legalism gets my fires burning every time, in any manifestation. 

Our family is active.  We go do.  We are out in the community and with the school and our church.  We get to speak into the lives of kids and of families that we would not know if we weren't involved in these things, families that don't "do church". We have seen people come to church because they know someone from sports or speech or whatever, and it isn't so scary if you know someone who will be there.

Sometimes, I wish I could go back to when they were littles and we were home together all of the time.  But I am raising men, and I want them to "go therefore into all the world" boldly and with confidence, because they know who they are and that they can touch down at home.  My kids' character is being challenged and built through our involvement in activities.  They have to be men of God in the world, not just at church and in our home.

If I have misunderstood what he was conveying, I apologize.  I am in no way offended, but felt like there was a valid counter-view that should be expressed.  We are not all called to be elbows, and raising kids, like being a member of God's body, is rarely one size fits all.  I so appreciate the challenge to examine what we do and hold it up to the scrutiny of conviction.  Keep fighting the good fight.