Did we do okay by our children?

Being a parent is a big responsibility. Raising children is not for the timid, but the rewards are great.

My wife Gordi and I were blessed to have three girls. Then we thought adding a boy would be nice. So, we adopted a baby boy. A couple of years went by, and we decided we had resources to raise children. We were never going to be materially rich like the Jones next door, so we poured our riches of another kind into adopting a baby girl and a two-year-old boy, adding them to the other four. Then we began really experiencing what it means to look after these gifts called children. It takes a lot of caring and nurturing and guiding and loving. It was worth it.

Not all children, whether born or adopted in a family, have great beginnings. Harrison Mooney is an example of someone who had to find his way, searching for recognition as an adopted child, to becoming an adult who now knows who he is. He wrote a book about this journey, Invisible Boy (Harper Collins 2022). The back cover says about the book, the story,"An unforgettable coming-of-age memoir about a Black child adopted into a white Christian Fundamentalist family."

I read the book after I learned of it from a television news interview with the author. His voice, his presentation, his maturity caught my attention. His story made me wince. His adoptive parents gave him no support to find out who he was. Harrison had to conform to the image that his parents believed was correct. His whole childhood, his teen years, and his early adult years at university were a constant search for an image of who he was. He was invisible.  

When he became an adult he connected with his birth mother. The subsequent story is a touching account of discovering love.The closing sentence of the book, the story, says it all. Looking in the car mirror after having this experience with his birth mother, Harrison exclaims,"for the first time in my life, I saw that I was beautiful.

This story prompted me to review what I’d done as a parent, what Gordi and I accomplished. The book confronted me with the question,"did we do okay by our children?”  

As Christians we should strive to understand what it means when we read in the Bible that God has known us before we were, knew us in the womb. Parents get to care for these ones loved by God. We get to bring them up. The Bible says, "Those who spare the rod hate their children, but those who love them are diligent to discipline them." (Proverbs 13:24) It takes a lot to understand what this parenting guidance from Scripture means.  As children of God, we are all adopted as brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus.  We are called to be who we are meant to be.  Jesus says, "Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs" (Matthew 19:14).  

I have checked in with my adult children. I know them as parents of my grandchildren. There are now great-grandchildren as well.

I have reviewed how I did at this parenting, how Gordi and I made it through all those years. We did okay. I do hope all parents can say that. Yes, we made mistakes. We were not perfect. But we never forgot that it is a gift to have children for whom we were responsible. 

It is my opinion that God blesses all parents, and all parents have the opportunity to share that blessing.