Dad's Email Network - Encouraging men in their role as husband and father.
Too Much Of A Good Thing
Note: In this email I will use some quotes from Dan Kindlon’s book: Too Much Of A Good Thing—Raising Children of Character in an Indulgent Age and then make some applications. I highly recommend this book for your reading. Dr. Kindlon is not a believer, but God has blessed him with common grace, to give his readers some wonderful insights into this topic.
In many ways, the current generation of parents are more emotionally and relationally connected with their kids, but we are too indulgent. We give our kids too much and we demand too little. We indulge them, in part, because we are indulging ourselves. We are self-absorbed with their success as a means to give ourselves worth. We feel like we have value because our child is an achiever in some area. We buy for them “over the top” toys to keep up or stay ahead. Trust me on this: It is not something other parents do—it is something we all do. Dr. Kindlon says the most striking aspect of indulgent parenting is that it is easy to see in others, but hard to see in ourselves. When other parents indulge their children we cry “foul”, but when we do it, we have a special reason for it. One of the many evidences of our indulgence is that the idea of downsizing our cable package, our services, or our family entertainment comes because of the economy rather than as a choice of wisdom. Our charity does not pinch our lifestyle and our kids know it.
We indulge them with things, but we also indulge them by bending the rules for them; either our rules or the rules of culture so they get more or get ahead. In fact, down deep we think the rules do not apply to our children and we get angry when someone suggests that they do.
“What happens when we can’t be perfect parents? We feel guilty. We think that we owe our children everything and we feel bad when we can’t provide it. Almost all parents have at one time given in to a child or bent a household rule because they felt guilty about something they had done. Often this guilt relates to our hectic lives. We acquiesce because we haven’t spent enough time with our kids. Our children sense this guilt and use it to their advantage. Toy stores in airports help business travelers assuage guilt by bringing home a Beanie Baby or model plane.”
Do you see what he is saying here? Both the parents and children can be trapped by their own idolatry to indulge themselves! We feel guilty because we feel the desperation and fear that we have to parent well and get them ahead or the universe will collapse.
We give our kids too much and we demand to little.
“It’s not just a little ironic that our success and newfound prosperity – the very accomplishments and good fortune that we so desperately desire to share with our children – put them at risk. It puts them at risk of having their lives eaten by a self-absorbed vision of indulgence. We are indeed raising a generation of children who believe in some ways it is immoral to go without luxuries.” (Have you ever had your child scold you because they do not have a TV in their room like their peers?)
This quote resonates in my soul deeply! Every Christmas, we max out the card and spend at least part of the year paying it off. Now, we should be getting our kids gifts for Christmas and some of them might even be luxuries. The question is how do I stop indulging my children, and how do I stop indulging myself. The message of the gospel is not “stop it” when it comes to fun, pleasure and good gifts, but how do we get over ourselves to see the bigger story of living for something larger than ourselves?
We must go deeper still.
“What is it in our psychology that sabotages our feelings of adequacy; our satisfaction with what we have, with what’s enough? What is the acquisitive urge in us that seems to have taken over our lives? Our drives for dominance, supremacy, hierarchical ascendance, and a threshold for pleasure that seems boundless, have all been exacerbated by a media that bombards us with tantalizing images of the good life that revolves around things.”
In this quote, Dr. Kindlon is honest enough as a non-Christian to expose the deeper question without just quickly moving to a solution. He is asking: “Why do we always want more? What is it about us that makes us driven to keep indulging ourselves and our children?” Answer: Our heart and our very lives are made to know the glory of God. We are made to know His delight and anything short of it only leaves us thirsty. We drink from the eye-dropper of indulgence when our thirst needs a fire-hydrant of fresh spring water. He is right! “The threshold for pleasure is boundless.” It is the boundless glory of God in Christ that we long for with all of our hearts.
We cannot swim upstream this Christmas or any other time in our lives unless we are surrounded by the current of His love. We must get our families to drink living water from the hydrants of gospel preaching, mission, and fellowship. This is not something we understand once and then move on. We must return to the living water of the gospel again and again to repent and believe.
My youngest is disabled. It seems easier to “do” for her, rather than teach her to do it by herself. It seems easier to carry her, to feed her, to help her in the bathroom, and to help her with her pajamas. All these things we were doing in excess. Unknowingly we had been further handicapping her. One of her therapists, gently and wisely, asked us to stop doing so much for her. We thought we were at pace to help her become independent, but she challenged us further and exposed us as “enabling” parents! After listening to us, she said, “No, you are still doing too much for her!”
Dr. Kindlon tells us what we all need to hear: “No, you are still doing too much for them.”
Both of my older kids were told when they were little, that they would one day go on mission trips like the older kids at church. These were not nameless people but the teens my kids looked up too. So despite our fears of letting them go (the indulgence of control), we have sent them on these trips.
My oldest daughter has served on a church ministry team for the last year (her idea, not mine). She is discovering her gifts to serve and love people. She wants to give her time and her money away. Both of my older kids have humbled their dad, because they are more gracious and giving than I am.
A mission trip and a ministry team are not “magic pills”, but they are ways you and your child can begin to break the indulgence cycle. It is our understanding Christ serving us, not as an example, but as our Savior that moves us out in the power of the gospel to love others and to have our families healed of being self-absorbed.
Applications
Talk to your spouse and pray that God would show you how you are indulging your kids.
Your child is demanding to be indulged by you! Where are you telling them “No”!? Where are you telling yourself “No”! Remember they are only asking you to indulge them in ways they have seen you indulging yourself. (This is true many times, but peers and culture play a part too.)
In praying and asking ourselves these questions, we must say “yes”, to finding life not in indulging comforts, but in God, our Father who does indulge His children with His grace.