PARENTING August 7, 2006 Issue

LOOKING BENEATH THE SURFACE

MELANIE WAHLBERG

SINCE WE'VE BECOME PARENTS, my husband and I have adjusted our lives and schedules in order to focus on raising three young children. Most parents would agree that this involves sacrifices they make willingly for their families. But this still requires change. And part of my adjustment has meant giving up trying to control every scenario with my children.

For instance, I've realized that I can't control one daughter's sudden impoliteness to a neighbor, another's lack of interest in dinner, or one of the children crying when I'm on the phone. Sure, I can expect obedience and model correct behavior for the next time around—but this, I've found, takes a little something more than just good parenting skills.

Recently, I read an idea that really gets at that "something more" that parenting seems to require. The author, a father himself, writes, "Having children is a sacrifice, but only in the sense that it means giving up superficial things for something that is much better, discarding the trivial in favor of the eternal" (Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Face Your Fear—Living with Courage in an Age of Caution, New York: St. Martin's Press, 2004). That idea resonated with me. I've always thought of "eternal" as referring to the things of God. In fact, Mary Baker Eddy wrote, "Nothing is real and eternal,—nothing is Spirit,—but God and His idea" (Science and Health, p. 71). I've found that gaining the eternal sometimes requires letting go of my way of doing or seeing things, which can be based on how things appear on the surface, in order to make room for God's larger plan to emerge.