Parenting with Your Spouse

Parenting with Your Spouse

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, right?? What if the bible is true and men AND women are from Eden? Sometimes this truth is hard to believe. Isn’t it? Some of you are new to parenting and some of you have been parenting for a few years now. In either case, I’m sure you have noticed that the differences between men and women continue to be, well, existent, even in the world of parenting. My husband and I would like to think that we are pretty alike. We have the same type-A personality, we are first-borns, we like the same music and movies; we share thoughts about vacations and cars and dreams. I thought there would be little to discuss or disagree on when it came to parenting because we were ‘just alike’. We even had similar Christian family backgrounds and experienced similar disciplinary punishment from our parents as kids. But, we are not alike; we handle many parental situations differently and continue to disagree on some things. I have come to believe that this was God’s intent, and our children will become who God intends them to be if these differences continue to exist.
God had a parental design in place when he created man and woman. Made complete with the desire and the right tools, men and women procreate and populate! God even commands us to have children, “be fruitful and increase in number” says Genesis 1:28. IF he created us differently and created us to be parents, it would follow that God would give us clues as to how to parent well despite our differences. Tonight we are going to highlight some of the different instructions God gives to each sex, and how we can support our spouse as they aim to be the best parents to our children.
First hear this; your relationship with your spouse is of utmost importance. God created this relationship first. I believe I’m the best at parenting when things are going good in my marriage. Parenting expert Gary Ezzo says, “The husband-wife union is not just a good first step towards child-rearing. It is a necessary one. Too often, parents lose sight of this fact, getting lost in a parenting wonderland of photos, footsteps, and the first words. Baby becomes central to their existence. Yet the greatest overall influence you will have on your children will not come in your role as an individual parent, but in your joint role as husband and wife.” This group is designed primarily for moms to connect with other moms and sift through parenting advice, literature and experience. However, all this can be undone, without a growing marriage. Malachi 2:15a says, “God made husbands and wives to become one body and one spirit for His purpose – so they would have children who are true to God.” I urge you to work at your marriage. Our children are watching our every movement, and you can be they are watching how we are in relationship with our spouse.
Instructions for fathers: This information is not given so we can jump in the car after spending time together here tonight and drive home and teach our husbands. I share this so that we might better understand the role our husbands play as fathers and the way we are to support them. Fathers and husbands carry an enormous burden. They are driven to provide financial stability even husbands whose wives work and contribute significantly to the family income. It is in their DNA. They work to provide and build a career and yet that leaves them little time to be with the family. In Power of a Praying Wife Stormie Omartain says, “Thoughts of failure and inadequacy are what cause so many fathers to give up, leave, become overbearing from trying to hard, or develop a passive attitude and fade into the background of their children’s lives.” Our husbands have a heavy burden to carry.
The fatherly challenge says Dr David Blankenhorn is to be a good family man; a man who puts his family first. James Dobson writes his duties as father and husband are to serve as the family provider, to serve as the leader of the clan, to serve as protector, to provide spiritual direction at home. This is not an easy challenge, especially when fathers and husbands have so much opposition and confusion just from their wives. Have you ever wanted your husband home from work earlier and more often, and yet had a list of things you wanted to buy that were costly? They work harder and longer to be more successful and provide more money which takes them away from the family. They stay home more and miss out on the project that could have gave them the edge in a promotion, forfeiting the money needed to meet the lifestyle and material desires of their wives. How confusing for them!
The support we can give them as wives is crucial. I believe prayer is a key component. We can pray that they are good fathers. Stormie Omartain says, “If they are tortured with doubt and burdened with a sense of responsibility, we can minimize these feelings with our prayers.” Here are a few suggestions on what to pray.

Pray for clarity and guidance on how to handle parenting challenges.
Pray that he has desire and time to spend in God’s presence
Pray that he doesn’t doubt God’s love for him
Pray for healing where he has had a fallen or failed relationship with his own father
Pray that he knows how important he is to his children

Another key component in supporting our husbands in their role as parents is to give them time. So often I find myself being impatient with my husband’s ability or desire to father or parent. Becoming a father is a completely other experience than becoming a mother. Just the sheer bonding time that elapses during pregnancy leaves a father feeling like he’s an outsider from the start. So as wives, as mothers, we have to give these men a chance to adjust and grow and develop nurturing skills and so much more!
Third, there are so many things that we can say that will build their confidence as a father, and there are many things said that can tear confidence down. James Dobson says in his book Bringing up Boys, ‘If you show respect to him as a man, (your children) they will be more inclined to admire and emulate them.” Consider the following story,
I vividly recall sitting at the dinner table with my two brothers and father and mother and cringing at my mother’s attacks on my father. “Look at him,” she would say in Yiddish. “His shoulders are bent down, he’s a failure. He doesn’t’ have the courage to get a better job or make more money. He’s a beaten man.” He would keep his eyes pointed toward his plate and never answer her. She never extolled his virtues or persistence or the fact that he worked so hard. Instead she constantly focused on the negative and created an image to his three sons of a man without fight, crushed by a world over which he had no control.
His not fighting back against her constant criticism had the effect of confirming its validity to her sons. And my mother’s treatment and the picture of my father did not convey to me that marriage was happy state of being, or that women were basically people. I was not especially motivated to assume the role of husband and father myself from my observations of my whipped father.
Maybe we don’t seem this awful, but we need to look and listen to what we are saying to our husbands about their character and parenting. Remember that the day you became a mother, your husband became a father. You started this journey at the same time…you grow together.

Parenting with Your Spouse Discussion Questions

Do you and your husband have differences in the way you parent?



Because the husband-wife relationship was created by God first, and because a good marriage is important to successful parenting, what is one way you can grow your marriage?



List 3 positive things your husband does as a father. This week tell him what those things are.



Think of a way your husband struggles as a parent. Write it on the note card provided and commit to praying for him in this area weekly.



Reflect on a time when you criticized the way your husband handled a particular parenting issue. Could you have held your tongue? Or at minimum said something constructive?


Name one area where you need to be less controlling.



Think of a time when you looked at your child and thought before you was a “mini-me.” Are there images of Father God that you have because of the model your parents gave?

Prayer

I don’t think that many of us would object if I said our children need our prayers. Nor would we object that praying for them should begin even before they leave the womb. But I think it might be hard to define how much we should pray for them, exactly what we should pray about, and when it is we’re to find time to pray.
I’d like to begin talking about our parental fears. Because fears can stop us from praying, how does God want us to pray through fears? Then, I’d like to address praying over the hopes and dreams we have for our children. I have some tools to help us get started. Next, I’ll discuss the life of a busy mom and how to incorporate prayer into our lives, and also give some solace to the mom whose days are never alike and give her little free time. Finally I’ll end with how we set an example of faithfulness as praying parents. Last time we met, during our discussion time I asked the question, “what is your greatest fear for your children as a mom?” I was really surprised by all the different answers. How I answered the question was completely different than how someone else answered the question. Some of our fears were: that they wouldn’t recognize the love and value of family; that they would turn out to be just like us, inheriting all our junk as their own; that illness, disease or physical problems would disable them; that that they would make poor life choices; and that they would not ever really know who they are.
Fears do several things to us. Fears cripple us making us unable to move forward. We need clear plans to conquer fears and move past them. Fears cause us to retreat down a path of complacency. We may be afraid and choose to stay where it seems safe and free from confrontation. However, doing nothing rarely results in positive results. Fears can also blind us to God’s truth. Many times I’ve just been too afraid to concentrate on God’s promises and seem to get stuck in fear and doubt.
God says he has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind, 2 Timothy 1:7. So what happens when we’re not feeling confident about when, how and what to pray about? How do we get a hold of fears when praying seems difficult?
For some reasons other than my children, I started putting a particular verse to practice. I think it is extremely helpful in aiding us as we pray for anything and delivering us from fear. Philippians 4:6-7 says, “Don’t worry or be fearful about anything; instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for what he’s done. If you do this you will experience God’s peace, which is far more than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.”
As practical as it can get, on one side of sheet of paper I write the word fear, and on the other side I write prayer. I make a list of things that I’m really feeling fearful about, when I finish that list, I write a corresponding prayer to cover each fear. As God promises, I find myself receiving the peace that he promises. I continue with a list of needs, although it might seem redundant. Some slightly different things appear when we are vulnerable enough to tell God that we need something. I end with a list of things I’m thankful for; generally surrounding the issues I’ve just feared. It is incredible how this exercise changes the state of your mind… and I believe you will actually experience the spirit of power and sound mind that God says he has given us.
There will be seasons where we fear so much and seasons of little fear. The ebb and flow will have to do with our own spiritual journey, our children’s spiritual journeys, and natural changes that occur as children grow, for example, the 1st day of school, soccer or football practice, 1st school dance, graduation, etc. Remember, we can call upon God when we find ourselves in fear, we can step forward in faith, and we can use Phil 4:6-7 as an aid and pray through these fears for our children.
The last part of vs. 7 says this peace will guard our hearts and minds. I wondered what if our hearts and minds weren’t guarded. I think we’d have broken hearts and crazed minds. You’ve seen the overprotective, suffocating mom who has a broken heart because her children distance themselves from her. The mom, who can’t think or sleep or take care of her family because she is worried all the time about everything, has no peace of mind. These are not pictures of the mom I long to be or even the follow of Christ. God promises peace if we pray to him about our fears.

Prayer Discussion

Discussion

Fears: Philippians 4:6-7

FEARS-----------------------------PRAYER






NEEDS-----------------------------THANKSGIVING






Questions:
Share a creative prayer option:




What is one small step that you can take to begin praying more for you child(ren)?

Love Discussion

Love : Discussion

What is your greatest fear for your children as a mom?

Loving out of a full tank
Do you know what drains your tank? What fills your tank?
- who are you with
- what are you doing
- where are you doing this
- When I do this, I feel most alive

Tank Illustration

If you (we) could accomplish one thing in the next 3 months, what would it be?

Love

LOVE

Does it seem to you as though there is a parenting crisis? I hear it in the news everyday. Headlines are filled with stories about convicted felons, child molesters, killers and gang members. Our entertainment TV news thrives on stories of public figures in sex scandals, as drug addicts, and as teen alcoholics. We almost have to be reminded that these were once innocent children, once kids down our streets riding bikes and catching fireflies. Ok, well some may have been already shopping for Gucci purses! But these once babes, now wildly spinning out of control adults are destroying their lives and the lives of bystanders, friends, family members. We could argue that these people are adults; they have made theses destructive choices. One could claim that its no ones fault but their own. We could blame their schools, their cities, their churches or socioeconomic status. But, I can’t help to wonder who their parents are? Where are they? Did they feel loved as a child? What were they taught by their parents? Could they have help changed the course of destruction?
Is it just that children will turn out one way or another? What about my children? What will they turn out to be? My greatest fear as a mom is that my children will grow up to be Godless, destructive and alone. Is there impact and influence that I as a mom have in their lives that will affect what kind of adults they become? I think that most of us believe the parenting role is an influential relationship in a child’s life. Do we realize it is the most important role? I think we do.
Deep inside I hope that what I do now as a mom will impact them on into adulthood. I have to believe that I can train them, teach them, and model to them. You’ve seen it, I’ve seen it, and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. If my fear is that my children grow up into Godless, destructive and lonely adults; my hope for who they become as adults seems pretty clear to me. I want them to be God-filled, life-giving, relational adults. I have a strong suspicion that is what you want as well. So here it is, the “future,” our first crisis. Will our children grow up into every mother’s dream, or something else?