Loving the Little Years
Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches
By: Rachel Jankovic
Validated and anxious. That's how I feel after reading this book.
Validated because a lot of the situations she describes are ones I've experienced or I highly expect to experience. Validated because she says, "our children sin against us, annoy us, and mess up our stuff. We want to hold it against them, complain about them (if only to ourselves), and feel put upon by their sin." With 5 kids under 6, I think her trenches might be deeper, but we both have the same sentiments of motherhood.
Anxious because she gets my hopes up with all these great ideas of how to communicate right expectations to your kids about their behaviors and attitudes, of how to discipline your children, of how to instill godly principles first and foremost. And now I have all these ideas that I have to remember and implement consistently and correctly in order to produce solid children and I don't want to mess it up.
She says she doesn't have it all together- that she does "a lot of on-the-job failure and correction."
But as I read I was thinking, 'Um. Pretty sure you're a saint if you do all these things with your 5 children regularly.' Maybe she has it together and maybe she doesn't, but I suppose who wants to read a book about all kinds of mom-fails with no helpful suggestions. That's just our real lives, we don't need to read a book to get that.
The point of the book isn't to compare myself to her as a mom. We're all figuring this out as we go. I appreciate that she wrote a book to share the things she has found helpful and successful in rearing her children to be first and foremost followers of Christ. Similar to Paul Tripp's parenting books, we have to remember it's about treating their hearts, not merely modifying their behaviors.
It's a short book with short chapters. I thought she was funny and enjoyed her writing style. It's not meant to be an exhaustive book on parenting and is worth a read. It was kind of a kick-start for me, an attitude-check on how I viewed my tasks as a mother of two now. My daughters aren't old enough to do all of the things she suggests yet, but when I'm dealing with a rebellious 2 year old, it helps me take a breath and filter the situation through the right lens.
A couple more 'sound bites':
"The state of your heart is the state of your home. You cannot harbor resentment secretly toward your children and expect their hearts to be submissive and tender. You cannot be greedy with your time and expect them to share their toys. And perhaps most importantly, you can not resist your opportunities to be corrected by God and expect them to receive correction from you."
"If you accept your lot and rejoice in your toil, God will give you the kind of overwhelming joy that cannot remember the details. Motherhood is hard work. It is repetitive and oftentimes menial. Accept it. Rejoice in it. This is your toil. Right here. Those are their faces. Enjoy them. The days of your life are supposed to be full of things like this… You will not even remember the work of all this planting when the harvest of joy overwhelms you."
“We tell our girls that their feelings are like riding horses- beautiful, spirited horses. But they are the riders. We tell them that God gave them this horse when they were born, and they will ride it their whole life… When our emotions act up, it is like the horse trying to jump the fence and run down into a yucky place full of spiders to get lost in the dark. A good rider knows what to do when the horse tries to bolt- you pull on the reins! Turn the horse’s head! Get back on the path!... There is nothing wrong with the emotions… Talk to your daughters about how they might feel, and what you want to see when they do… The goal is not to cripple the horse, but equip the rider.”
“Just because you can pin down one sin in the batch does not mean that child is responsible for the situation… Disciplining and individual for a collective situation is a great way to alienate your children. It is not only unjust and unkind, but it is untrue to the gospel… What you just did was toss your burden of guilt onto a child to have her carry it. Well, what is she supposed to do with it, other than be beaten down by it?”
“Motherhood is a demanding job. It is so demanding and intrusive, in fact, that it takes over your body. It uses your body, oftentimes rather roughly. This can start to bother us… our bodies are tools, not treasures. You should not spend your days trying to preserve your body in its eighteen-year-old form… motherhood uses your body in the way God designed it to be used. Those are the right kind of damages.”
“When our children are fussing with each other, we will interrupt them and ask them a few questions. First of all, we ask them to tell us what they did that was wrong, leaving the other person out of the narrative… then ask, ‘What is more important, a flashlight, or your sister?’ After they answer, we will ask them what they were pretending was important… we tell them to get it right. They need to apologize for breaking fellowship over a flashlight. I like for them to say that because it makes it perfectly clear to them what exchange they were making.”