Light Duties

God built certain responsibilities into the parent/child relationship. If you are looking to grow in understanding and doing that role, then you might appreciate the monthly Charlotte Mason study group I host. This episode explains what that is all about. You can join the group via Patreon ($5 AUD per month). A reading schedule is available on the Light Duties website. Join anytime, no prior knowledge required!    

First published August 2024 on the Australian Presbyterian website. For the full text, see the AP site or the Light Duties website. This article explores the disparity between the sentiments of the 2024-25 Women's Budget Statement and the Bible's vision of how children are raised. Instead of focusing on women's rights, I suggest we refocus by considering how our children are going with the biblical imperative that they obey their parents. Is it possible that the expectation that children can learn to obey has disappeared along with the means by which the Bible assumes it is learned?

Following the How to Fill the Time episode, I've received questions about what kinds of children's books to read. Here is a response, to help you filter out many of the options and point you to some good springs.  I mentioned: Biblioguides Vigen Guroian, "Tending the Heart of Virtue" (No affiliate link; I used the website that had the cheapest prices as of the date the episode was released). Hans Christian Anderson translated by Erik Haugaard. Five in a Row Sabbath Mood Homeschool Charlotte Mason Study group at The Book House Patreon (NB it's 5% per month). The Literary Life Podcast.

Jodie McIver is the Christian friend every expectant mum needs, especially in Australia. She understands the Bible, she understands midwifery and she understands the great variety of experiences faced by women who are becoming mothers. This is a review of her book, "Bringing Forth Life: God's Purposes in Pregnancy and Birth". 

When we've been invested in giving good and restraining harm for our kids, the situations that bring them low can be bitter to us. But we and our children need these pains, lest we miss the best of comfort, especially as they become independent.

Our work in mothering is not going to achieve all that we imagine. Why bother when we don't know which way the ball will bounce? This episode is about the comfort we can count on.

How can these maternal duties be called "light" when they are so weighty in importance and difficulty? 

A listener has asked, "What good things can I fill my time and the kids' time with before starting formal schooling?". This response was recorded while I was out and about (so it sounds a bit raw). It's a start in thinking about why we have trouble filling time with very young children (I propose that it is an oddity of our economic/social/historical context). I meander through some of the key elements to making time at home with preschoolers nourishing for them and you. Plenty more can be said, but one needs to stop recording somewhere! I mentioned J.R.R. Tolkien's essay, "On Fairy Stories" and George Macdonald's essay on the imagination from "A Dish of Orts". As usual, I reference Charlotte Mason (not nearly enough, since most of what I say is very much an application of her principles).

Perhaps we find motherhood difficult because we haven't given much thought to building a house? The thing is, we're all building from ruins, salvaging and restoring what we can. We have ideals, but none of us are working with ideal materials. Our splintered posts have meaning.

In this think-aloud chat, we consider how our most basic form of treasure is our attention. And where our treasure is, there our heart will follow. Some thoughts on how we might come to love things we really don't like doing.

Sometimes God's generosity exhausts us. When the good gifts generate more work, we often treat them like a curse. This episode is about recognising the abundance we've had put in our hands so we can get busy doing something with it. It's about how to do a faithful job of handling the abundance (the abundance we often complain about). It's also about what pleases the Lord in those times when all the abundance has gone. At the end of this think-aloud chat are some thought for how churches might open up some options for the mothers who are on their last copper coins. I mention Jeremiah Burrough's books, "The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment" and "How to Abound". 

Perhaps telling people about Jesus while we're caring for our children isn't as complicated as we make it? Some reflections from a couple of decades (while I clean and repair books).

The great terror of motherhood is that we'd ruin it. This dread causes some mothers to do less: the less we do, the less we can fail. The same dread causes others to grip tighter and work harder: the harder we try the more sure the outcome will be. The painful truth is that both—minimal doing and overdoing—are ruinous to the thing we are trying to preserve.

I could NOT let Christmas come without saying something. But such is the sweltering pace of things around here that I am talking on the run, complete with the creaking of doors, thrum of traffic and stretching of sticky tape. Minus editing and intro and outro. It's a worked example of giving what you've got even though it's far less than your ideal. That's the kind of chat this is. May you and your kids and everyone within orbit of you better know the comforts of King Jesus. https://mycanonplus.com/tabs/discover/video-series/1167

We don't have to trick kids into obedience. And we mustn't neglect climbing trees. A life of obedience isn't a legalistic life. Obedience training is not a constant drill of facts and instruction. It isn't micromanagement, explicitly teaching every virtue and moral lesson by rote. It's not that we make obedience fun, like a cheap gimmick to bribe our children into doing what they ought. Obedience is not a bitter pill crushed in a spoonful of honey, or a zucchini blended into a chocolate cake. When we're pursuing obedience on God's terms, things are more fun and more interesting, because obedience makes people and things more truly themselves. It gives true freedom and deep pleasure.

What if our children grow up to squander the good gifts we have tried to give them? If it doesn't end up achieving all we hope for, would faithful Christian motherhood be a waste of time? This is a think-aloud delve into how to stay motivated for a fraught work. I pray it is a comfort, and fortifying.

This is the first episode answering a few questions lately received. Ranging from preparing for the teen years; parenting books I wish I had read at the start of my time as a mum; suggestions for Bible study guides to support Christ centred mothering. Along with some comments about Christian cancel culture.  

If there was a way to sober me up in the euphoria of anticipating new motherhood, this verse was it. A hint that there was a weighty trust and great danger. I wasn't merely welcoming a baby, but a person who would grow into an adult who would either fear the Lord or despise him. "his sons blasphemed God, and he failed to restrain them.” (1 Samuel 3:13). 

In this think-aloud chat, Cathy talks aloud through a few things she's noted watching kids grow from complete dependence to almost the opposite (in a shockingly short space of time). A few things she's learning to focus on with the escalating pressure to fast track our kids into independence. It starts with trying to figure out what independence is. Note the audio was recorded while Cathy was building and cleaning book shelves. The audio reflects the real-time multitasking situation. If you want to know what the library project is, you'll find it at https://www.livingbookhouse.com/

In this think aloud chat, I continue thinking through my experience of handling motherhood and unwieldy moods. This is about some practical considerations that have helped. And books. See website for links.

In this think-aloud-chat, Cathy talks through some of her experience of learning to cope. This is a look at one mum's experience over a long time, and the things that made a difference when dealing with long term depression and anxiety. 

My experience as a mum started before it was normal to have a smart device on hand constantly, but I soon had to come to terms with the opportunities and follies of screens. These are some thoughts (complete with the soundtrack of my domestic life) about some principles that have come to shape what happens between kids and screens in our family. Note also  https://www.motherbiblelife.com/articles/whymotherhoodisboring a rather connected episode https://www.motherbiblelife.com/articles/boredom-think-aloud-chat To view my conference workshop about Boredom, see https://youtu.be/q3pP874Y-ro

Obedience doesn't bring about belonging, the belonging comes first. When we belong, we express our connectedness through obedience.  Obedience isn't about keeping ten thousand rules. In our own obedience as mums, and in helping our children learn to obey, rules cover only a fraction of the surface area. Rules aren't the entirety of obedience, they only define the edges. Rules are fences and gates; obedience is the space between. Good rules protect and direct and give definition to obedience, but they are signposts, not the substance. Rules are a step in describing the features of godliness, what it looks like to actively belong. For their season of dependent childhood, belonging to a family, and learning to obey within that family, is the most common, enduring, complex, deepest form of evangelism and discipleship. It is a temporary season though, a season of higher dependence to prepare them to live for Jesus away from us.

This is a think-aloud chat especially for my unexpected audience: the women who are still young enough to be dependent on parents; the women who are looking at a future full of unknowns--the not-yet-mums, the younger women who still have many choices waiting to be made. When we find ourselves married and with children, we realise we're riding on the back of choices we made ten, 15 or 20 years earlier--long before we were thinking about what's involved in being married and raising kids. This think-aloud chat is about some of the things worth having in mind as you start looking at the good possibilities yet to come. Links to books referred to are listed on the Light Duties webpage.

Once we're persuaded that it is good for us to train our children in obedience, a new set of potholes form in the road, some deeper than others. There are many ways we get things wrong. Our sin mangles and makes further obedience more complicated. But the complications don't nullify the command. The exceptions don't change what God has made plain for all of us. The fact that there are potholes don't mean we should give up on the road. It just means being alert, swerving, repairing, and occasionally dealing with the erosion that is undermining the road.

Teaching children to obey is a delicate, yet robust work. No relationship other than parent to child is designed to bear the weight of it. The trained childcare worker, the babysitter, the neighbour, the aunt, the uncle, the grandparent, the friends, the Sunday School teacher, the pastor, the school are not authorised by God to discipline and instruct children into mature godliness. Biblically, no one else is commissioned for this role. Even though other people are involved in the lives of our children, it is—by far—the parents' responsibility to teach their children to obey Jesus. Other people provide relational backdrop, and short-order support of various kinds, but Scripture directs children to obey their own parents and directs parents to the training and instruction of their own children*. When we notice that the training is not merely a transfer of information and skills, but to “bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4), we soon realise that no one else can do it for us.  

So, how do we actually teach children to obey? Here's a bullet point list to start with.

This chat is about what has been helpful in different stages of my mothering years, as far as personal Bible reading goes. Resources I mention in the chat can be found on the webpage. https://biblereading.christkirk.com/women/#

Like me, were you ever the person at school who hated every subject you weren't intuitively good at? The need to save face meant avoiding the areas where one's incompetence could be exposed. Which meant it took me decades to realise there is more to enjoying something than being the best at it. It's possible to learn to do new things. There's much pleasure, when we're willing to be seen for the duffers we are, while we fumble around learning something new. It's natural to dislike the word ‘obedience', after all, none of us are very good at it...

A casual chat about both maternal boredom and bored kids. Is boredom really good for us? I used to think so. It's taken 17 years of being a mum to think otherwise. And, what can we do about it?  https://www.motherbiblelife.com/articles/whymotherhoodisboring

Bringing about belief in Jesus is God's, hidden, sovereign work. On the other hand, tending to behaviour (which can either help or hinder belief) is definitely on the rather visible parental job description. God starts and finishes the work of saving people, but he uses all manner of means in the middle. Christian parents are not meant to wait on belief before we get busy teaching our children to obey Jesus.

Should we expect children will learn to obey when we know they have a sinful nature? Is it even possible this side of Genesis 3? The fallen, sinful nature does not completely erase the divine likeness every human being bears. If our thinking about total depravity has us conclude that no child can ever learn to obey at all, that they are beyond instruction and correction, that their lack of obedience is inevitably permanent, that they are unrestrainable, then we've not understood enough of the doctrine... What if kids learning to obey parents is a gift of God's common grace, whether people are Christian or not?

When it comes to fulfilling the great commission in our families (to teach our children to obey Jesus), sometimes our Christian conundrums paralyse us: Should we expect children will learn to obey when we know they have a sinful nature? Is it even possible this side of Genesis 3? Should we expect obedience (and give consequences for disobedience) when the Bible tells us that “no one is righteous, not even one”? Will teaching obedience to Jesus leave kids thinking they merit God's favour by their own goodness? Will training our children to obey Jesus make them think they don't need God's forgiveness? When I've told my child to put her bowl in the sink, and she doesn't, am I correcting a very young Christian or a very young unbeliever? Does it make any difference? When I pray with my child, should I expect she will learn to pray with me, or just listen in? Is it wrong to teach my children to pray when I don't know if they are actually Christians? Does God welcome their prayers? Is it teaching them to be presumptuous? Should we teach kids to say sorry to others and God before they understand the significance of what they're doing? Isn't this teaching them formulaic hypocrisy? Will teaching obedience make Christianity distasteful to them, leading to rebellion against Jesus down the track? Isn't obedience the same as legalism—the thing which undermines the gospel of grace? Isn't our job just to teach the Bible, then kids will work out obedience for themselves eventually? Doesn't behaviour follow belief? How can children behave a certain way if they don't believe, or are not yet cognitively able to understand the ideas which Christian belief is made from? If our children haven't come to the place of independent belief, how is it possible for them to obey Jesus? If it is only God's work which can change our child's heart, what could parents possibly do to help their children obey? Since we're saved by grace, why should we care about teaching our children to obey? These questions come out of distorted, half-baked doctrinal ideas. But if our ideas from the Bible make us less inclined to obey Jesus, something needs to change.

This is another audio-only free think about some aspects of teaching kids obedience, shared casually over my kitchen sink. These think-aloud chats are a bit of a birds-eye view from 17 years of parenting six kids (ie. lots of years not being able to ignore the realities of obedience!).  You can find the long train of thought (mostly in article form, all available in audio) at Light Duties.

This is another audio-only stream of consciousness. Cathy talks through some reflections on the changing relationships she's had with music for kids across her 17 years of mothering. Real-time, real sound (complete with the soothing sounds of dishwater). An exercise in trying to think behind the artifacts of Christian resources.

When I was younger, “obedience” was merely uncool. In the 90's and 00's, we didn't use the word because it was daggy, uptight and prudish. Obedience meant deprivation and legalism, the arbitrary spoiling of fun. Thoroughly unappealing. Now, it is counted among the evils of this world. In this episode, we consider a range of reasons why we don't teach our children to obey Jesus, from fear of stifling them to just not knowing how to go about it.

Jesus tells us to teach obedience to those for whom we have some sort of discipleship responsibility. The most profoundly connected disciples Christian parents have are their own children. We are obliged to teach our kids to obey Jesus. Every moment and task in our children's young lives is given by Jesus to be used for training them into obedience to Him. Whole body, whole heart, whole soul, whole mind, whole strength obedience. The sort of obedience which grows alongside of, comes from—and feeds—love for Jesus. Our job is to remind our children, in a way they can't ignore, in all of life, that they live under the authority of the Lord. We are to use our temporary season of parental authority to train our children to live for him. Never was the commission to “teach them to obey everything I have commanded” more thorough than for a parent who gets to oversee their children's first experiences of everything.

This isn't the usual audio version of an article, but a bonus "thinking aloud" session, going back through our family history of reading the Bible together, over the past 17 years. It might illustrate many of the ideas I write about at Light Duties. Mostly, I hope it fortifies you! articles referred to: https://www.motherbiblelife.com/articles/mothers-abiding https://www.motherbiblelife.com/articles/feeding-on-bible-when-the-meals-are-interrupted https://www.motherbiblelife.com/articles/nokidschurch https://www.motherbiblelife.com/articles/is-worship-the-right-word https://www.motherbiblelife.com/articles/constantembodiedworship

Here are some problematic assumptions about the Great Commission which end up stifling motherhood (and stifling the mission too): Wrong Idea 1: We're all meant to be constantly expanding our range of relationships to tell the gospel to new people. Wrong Idea 2: Our children don't qualify as people to be discipled. Wrong Idea 3: The Great Commission is only about evangelism. Wrong Idea 4: Mission to our children is done the same way as mission to our unbelieving neighbour. Since Jesus is our Head and Lord of everything, since he has appointed us each to our own spheres and duties, we can trust that the limitations of his provisions will achieve his mission.

Are home duties a rival to the Great Commission? Will building an overflowing home waste resources that could otherwise be spent telling the world about Jesus? This is the question that troubled me most as I fumbled around in the early years of motherhood. The word that evangelical Christians often focus on is “go”. It's hard to know what to do with that when so much of raising children is not going. This focus on taking the gospel to new people in new places pickles many of us in guilt, because the time of small children is not full of new people and new places. We're trying to work out how to be with the same few people in far fewer places than we used to circuit. The slow smallness which goes with invested mothering can look, on the outside, like apathy about Jesus' mission, or a barrier to it.

The golden law of our time is that whatever a woman is doing, she is Always Only Ever choosing the very best thing. Her holiness is indisputable. Her instincts are infallible. According to a poster on a wall near you, Women are Perfect. The trouble is, when we are struggling to know how to deal with a persistently contrary child, or we don't know how to fill the hours with a toddler, or we are enslaved to our own volatile temper, we know the truth. We are not Always Only Ever choosing the very best thing. No wonder we want to flee motherhood, it keeps exposing the lie. It exposes us...we often sabotage our own access to help.

Home is meant to be the central place from which we worship and train up worshipers. It is naturally the locus of our maternal responsibilities. It won't be the only place where responsibility and influence happens, but it is the basic place. We can't leap over it. This is a bland thought if we've not known what it's like to be in a home full of vitality; if we're still trying to grow out of our boredom. To say that home is where we are primarily responsible and most influential can be insulting, or at least bewildering, if we have a purely functional view of the home. I've written in article #11 about how the instruction to ‘be busy at home' is calling us to more, not less, than we imagine. The problem isn't so much with home, but with its unrealised potential. We underestimate the influence we wield through it.

It's not unusual to divide life into sacred and secular, bits God cares about and the bits he doesn't. Because gathered worship and the Bible and prayer and evangelism matter enormously, we think that everything else doesn't matter at all. But that is an unbiblical view, and a rather disheartening one. Most of our time as mums is given over to things which we would still do even if we weren't Christian. When we think that God doesn't care about the common activities we do, we're behaving as if someone else created ordinary human life in this world and then God came in to rescue us from it. Not so!

We live in a time where home is seen as either a day spa you retreat to, or the site of heavy-duty, mind-numbing labour we're desperate to escape. For the mothers of young children, we long for the former but live with the latter. Both ways of thinking about home are pretty boring and neither help us mature in worship while we raise worshipers. Let's talk about boredom, because it is surprisingly connected with worship.

What do we do if we're tying to help our children grow into worship, but our church situation isn't ideal? Well, none are ideal. This episode is about what you can do.

Much of the trouble with motherhood comes down to time. Either we don't have enough, we're trying to live three lifetimes at once; or we are adrift… bored…with too many vacant hours. We struggle with proportion and order and finding the right substance to fill the void. Urgency undermines a lot of good. We feel a heavy pressure to solve immediate problems at the expense of slower, apparently postponable priorities. Like motherhood. Table of Contents here.

Perhaps Christmas would be more enjoyable if we didn't feel we had to do so much? What a relief when we pause to consider that the only duties God calls us to at Christmas are those which hold true all year round.

A while ago, I mentioned the example of a church where it's normal for the kids to be present in corporate worship. We were part of that church when our first baby arrived and I was terrified that my child would grow to be the exception. The process of how one could possibly get kids to sit in church was a mystery to me. This is what 16 years of having kids in church has taught us.

One reason we might keep children separate from what the adults do at church, is that we forget the grandeur of what's going on. Most of what we see is pretty ordinary. The reality is actually far from boring. When we get a glimpse of the unseen, we're better positioned to help our children. 

I'm repenting of my neglect of the word, and with it the reality of, worship. Motherhood is ultimately about being a worshipper and raising worshippers, so it's worth using the word, especially on Sunday, when we worship especially.

Some words on worship while you wait for the next articles to be released.