How can we stand nights holding a newborn who cries seemingly incessantly while refusing to eat, sleep, or be comforted by their parents’ arms? How can we stand mealtimes when toddlers reject all the food we prepare for them, throwing it to the dog? How can we stand cleaning the floor when three-year-olds decide playing is more important than pausing to go to the restroom? How can we stand stress over teacher conferences, soccer team lineups, softball pitching, fifth-grade boys, dates gone awry, and moving away to college? In short, how can we stand parenting?
During the Good Friday service last week, our pastor asked us to write a short prayer inspired by Jesus’ quote, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Everyone was asked to complete the sentence, “Why God…?” As pastor Jamin read the questions aloud, one question stood out to me: “Why do you allow some to suffer so greatly for so long? If you are good, how can you stand it?” Hearing the beginning of this question, I assumed it would conclude, “… if you are so good, why don’t you stop it?” But that wasn’t the question. The question was, “How can you stand it?” I didn’t expect that turn.
Scripture repeatedly asks this question of God. Jewish scripture asks, how can you stand it when Eve eats the fruit, Cain kills Abel, Moses strikes the rock, Jonah sails the other way, David betrays Uriah, and Israel is taken captive? Christian scripture echoes by asking, how can you stand it when Rome conquers your land, controls your people, and defines peace as authoritarian rule?
The question at the heart of all these questions is this: If the divine aim is for the overall well-being of creation, how does God handle it when creation chooses a different path? The perhaps obviously related question is, how do we handle it?
How do you stand it? The question asks how you tolerate injustice while implying passivity and standing by. People “stand it” when reprimanded by a coach, boss, or drill sergeant. And they absorb the sometimes brutal rebuke without protest. They tolerate injustice without protest or resistance.
After wrestling with this question for a few days, I don’t think God “stands it.” God doesn’t passively stand by in the face of injustice and suffering. Instead, God responds to creation’s cries of injustice by seeking our involvement while leading all creation away from injustice toward overall well-being.
Hebrew scripture tells the story of the increasing injustice to the Hebrews enslaved under Egyptian rule. They “groaned” and “cried out” for help because of their suffering. God heard their pleas and “took notice of them” with empathy.1 God didn’t stand by doing nothing or swoop in and unilaterally free the Israelites from their bondage. Instead, God solicited others to cooperate with divine guidance, eventually freeing the Israelites from Egypt. Many people, including Moses’ mother and sister, Pharaoh’s daughter, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, the Levites, and the Hebrew households, contributed to this eventual deliverance. After many years, their contributions added up, and the Hebrew people were freed. Through their story, we see God responding to injustice with action, leading others to see it and cooperate to correct what was wrong.
The example of God’s response to the Israelites demonstrates God’s continual, moment-by-moment interaction with all creation. God is an omnipresent spirit in whom we “live and move and have our being,”2 and knows our situations, sufferings, and feelings. Seeing the possibilities for the future, including correcting injustice, God calls all creation toward cooperation in righting the wrong. In this way, God is far from being a bystander and constantly works toward creating overall well-being and alleviating injustice. By inviting us to participate in this healing process, God also teaches us to recognize injustice and work toward resolving it.
How does all this theology relate to our parenting? How can we “stand it?” What do we do when our children seem to reject our hard work? What do we do when they throw the dinner we prepared to the dogs, hit their siblings, or scream, “You just don’t understand”? In our “best self” moments, we follow the divine example.
First, we should see the injustice our child perceives and empathize. Pause, squat down to their level, look them in the eyes, and listen to understand what they see as unjust. This process helps children feel heard and often helps parents resolve or diffuse the situation. You may discover that the problem is that the child perceives an injustice that doesn’t exist. In that case, correcting their misunderstanding may clear everything up. You might learn that your child values a piece of “art” you mistook for trash and threw away. Retrieving the “art” may resolve the problem. If that’s not possible, helping them make something new and displaying it in a prominent spot may be the resolution. Regardless of what you learn, when you listen with empathy, children feel valued because they are heard.
Next, we creatively develop aspirations for resolving or preventing the injustice while considering the family’s overall well-being. This step may require listening to and empathizing with another child or your inner self. Considering our aspirations, we seek opportunities to empower and lead rather than coerce and control. This may involve verbalizing your understanding of the injustice and explaining how it can be resolved. You can also use questions to help children propose solutions to the injustice. Whenever possible, we should avoid the temptation to swoop in as the parent and enforce our plan unilaterally. That usually doesn’t work.
Some injustices can’t be fixed. It’s not fair when your child falls, breaks their arm, has to wear a cast for six weeks, and misses soccer season. These situations call for us to suffer with our children. We can acknowledge the disappointment, remind them that we are there and love them, and look for alternatives that aren’t as good as playing soccer, but may come close.
Responding to injustices our children feel also requires considering their developmental age and personality. Small infants don’t communicate with verbal language, but understand parental love when they are held and comforted. Teenagers probably aren’t as rebellious as they seem when they respond to injustices with dramatic displays. Introverted children may need more help verbalizing their perceptions of an injustice than others. Considering these factors helps parents empathize and children feel heard. Then, everyone can work together to right what is wrong.
Going back to my original question, how can we stand parenting? The answer is, we parent. We empower our children, leading them toward our aspirations of overall well-being while responding to their perceptions, feelings, and choices with love.
Ex. 2:23-25 (NRSV).
Acts 17:29.
image: forge-flux ai
Great post. I have never raised a child, so it's particularly interesting to me, like reading about a great unknown. I like the implied analogy between how God parents creation non-coercively and how good parents can aspire to parent children that same way.