The Law for the Child and the Mother

Last updated on: October 21, 2015 at 7:50 am by Anne Kennedy

The Law for the Child and the Mother 2015-10-21T07:50:08-04:00 Anne Kennedy

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

My new reign of terror kicked off reasonably well yesterday. It helps when the place is basically picked up, so that you are not mincing your steps through land mines of junk. It’s easier to end the day with a clean school room if it began that way in the first place.

But there is ever the tension, in moments where you again begin paying attention, when you had been letting yourself constantly fall into distraction, between a child quickly doing what you say, and you being ready to deal if they don’t. It’s a royal hassle to give a direction and then stick around to make sure it is carried out, when there are so many other things you’d rather do, like looking at your phone. I’m saying ‘you’ but I trust we all understand that of course I’m talking about myself. If there’s a moment of hesitation on the part of the child, it must immediately be treated as disobedience. And it must be you that treats it so.

My children are terrible at counting, so I comfort myself, because I never have done it for them, the long stringing out of time to consider if they want to do what I said or not. The moment of decision, for them, needs to happen instantly. If I speak, you say, “yes ma’m”, or in the case of Four year old Baby Euodia (still trying to land on a really stellar blog name. Matt’s been objecting to Egglantine from the get go) “yes sir”, ma’m being just too many things right now, and then do it. If you have a clarifying question, it has to be asked after you said “yes ma’m”. Yes Ma’m really functions like “say uncle”, or give up and go do what I said.

That’s the ideal, whoever can meet it, certainly not me with any degree of perfection. And as an ideal, it does cut across every cultural norm of the day. The modern child should, as far as I can make out from reading the Internet, exercise his choices and his autonomy, and if he chooses not to obey you, that’s ok. Maybe he will some day. His soul needs to unfold, or something, into the delicate flower that it is. Obedience might play a part in that unfolding, but if its there, it’s a very small part.

The trouble with the view of the child as an autonomous delicate soul is that it doesn’t account for scripture or reality. Obedience, from God’s perspective, is a life or death matter. If you can’t obey God, you will die. And so we all die. We cannot obey. We are all headed down to the grave cloaked in disobedience and rebellion. At the end of Deuteronomy, instructions are given by Moses to the people about a rite they must perform, once they enter the land. Half of them will have to stand on one hill and half on another hill. And from one hill, blessings will be enumerated and cried out. And from the other hill, curses. Both the blessings and curses are substantial, material, and, if you go back over them a few times, cutting to the heart of who you are. Not only is your stuff and your body in view, but the relative sorrowing or happiness of your soul. Either you will have what you need and be happy and satisfied, of you will be broken in mind, body and spirit. Which is it gonna be? The people of Israel all promise to obey, with every good intention of the will. But they won’t be able to do it. They will disobey. They are promising to do something impossible.

Which is the purpose of the law, even for children. The law, the giving of direction to a child is to teach 1. Self Control 2. Active Cheerful Obedience and 3. Sin. The child must be able to see for himself that he was told to do something he could reasonably do and that he failed to do it, that something inside of him rose up and rebelled, and then he must feel the immediate painful consequence of that rebellion and failure. If he is never given to see this, and it is the gift you, the parent, must give, he is hard pressed as he grows, to understand the catastrophe of his rebellion against God. He will look up at God and not understand the peril that he is in. It is as though he is running, spiritually, headlong into a busy street, full of dangerous cars, but you have never taught him that the consequence of that action is death, and so he is killed. You stand by the road, crying out, but he doesn’t hear your voice or your words because he never understood that your words had actual meaning. He spiritually perishes, because he doesn’t know the consequence of sin.

Which is why the law, without the gospel, is so cruel. Practically every day I get advertisements for new Sunday school curriculum and sometimes I try to look and see what I might see. And believe me, it is hard to find a curriculum that isn’t comprised of the simple easy message, Be Good and Kind and God will Love You. Which is the ugliest trap to fall into in parenting also, as foul as not laying down the law in the first place. The message must be, God himself commands it to be: You Must be Good, You Cannot be Good, I Came to be Good on your Behalf. The extraordinary thing about the blessings of Deuteronomy is how perfectly they point forward to Jesus. The peaceful blessing of being found in Christ is the salvation, the rescuing of not only your soul, but your body also. You cannot perish, if you cling to him, if you belong to him. But you cannot cling to him if you do not know yourself to be a sinner.

Living out the full breadth of the gospel with your children is laborious and painful because you yourself are so much in need of rescue. Do you obey God? Of course not. And yet you must make your child obey you. And when you don’t make your child obey? Because certainly you do not. What then? The gospel, the being found in Christ for the salvation of your own self, the forgiveness of your own sins.

The most terrible and unloving thing in all of creation, besides the murdering of the child before it sees the lit of day, is the giving of the child over to spiritual death for the rest of their physical lives because the parent couldn’t be troubled to give the law, and then preach the gospel.

But for this parent, this failing parent, for me, Christ died and gave his life. The greatest tragedy redeemed by the blood of the cross. So, let me stop this and have another go at it.

culture watch

Reading the Bible

Work and the Christian

Just Plain Spiritual

Previous Post

October 20, 2015

You Must Be Joking: Confessions of a Bad Mother

Next Post

October 22, 2015 Ten Reasons to Dislike Halloween

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category books Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Children in Conversation culture watch Daily Devotions Demotivations with Anne faith alone for the grandparents GAFCON In conversation with children In the News Kitchen Notes Lambeth Learning Notes Life Going On Men are Human Notes from Home Pictures Reading the Bible Saturday Links Sermons Signs of the Apocalypse The Bad Word Association The Prayer of Jonah Travel Notes Uncategorized Witless Wednesdays Work and the Christian

Select a Month June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What Christian tradition is associated with the seven sacraments?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Protestantism Roman Catholicism Quakerism Seventh-day Adventism

Books by This Author Books by Anne Kennedy

See All Titles »