Parenting and Time

Even for those of us who are followers of Jesus Christ, it’s easy to fall into the temptation of thinking life is all about me, myself, and I. If we choose to live that way as moms and dads, we are bound to hurt our kids. Listen to these words from Tim Keller: “True love meets the needs of the loved one no matter the cost to oneself. All life-changing love is some kind of substitutionary sacrifice. For a moment think about parenting. Children need you to read, read, and read more to them – and talk, talk, and talk more to them – if they are going to develop the ability to understand and use language. Their intellectual and social skills, and their emotional well-being, are massively shaped by how much time we spend with our children. This entails sacrifice on the part of the parent. We must disrupt our lives for years. Yet if we don’t do it, they will grow up with all sorts of problems. It’s them or us. We must lose much of our freedom now, or they will not become free, self-sufficient adults later.”