6. Stop the comparison game.
Few acts are more destructive than comparison. I’ve caught myself observing other parents not to glean pointers about parenting, but to chide them or myself. I will never parent that way, I think, which can either mean I don’t want to be like that parent or I am an utter failure at parenting well. Jogging through my neighborhood one day, God taught me a comparison lesson. Each yard was different. Some sported "Yard of the Month" signs. Others hatched weeds. I realized that the sanctification journey is different for me, as my "growing up" yard may have had bad soil and not enough sun. Comparing myself to Yard of the Month parents, who may have had affirming upbringings, was unfair. God asks us to concentrate on our own yard, to pull one weed at a time, to revel in one flower planted.
Paul says, "That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original" (Galatians 5:26, MSG). A chapter later, Paul asserts, "But each one must examine his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone, and not in regard to another" (Galatians 6:4 NAS).
7. Find support.
My parenting skills increased when I found other pioneer parents who struggled just like me. When I’ve had a particularly difficult parenting day, I’ll call a fellow pioneer parent and vent. Paul says that we are to "bear one another’s burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ" (Galatians 6:4 NAS). Finding like-minded pioneer parents who are willing to share struggles lightens burdens. As I shared my burdens, and listened to other Pioneer Parents share theirs, I realized I was a normal parent with typical struggles — with a big God who ultimately shouldered every burden. In the company of like-minded friends I’m able to laugh at my mistakes and continue down the pioneer parenting path.
Being a Pioneer Parent is no easy task, particularly when we’re plagued by worry that we’ll duplicate the homes we were raised in. In granting ourselves grace, seeking mentors, saying I’m sorry, seeking inside-out healing, forgiving our parents, eliminating comparison, and finding friends who bear our burdens, we will scale the difficult peak of parenting, by God’s grace.
Mary DeMuth is the author of Ordinary Mom, Extraordinary God, Building the Christian Family You Never Had, and Watching the Tree Limbs: A Novel. She loves to write and speak about the redemptive hand of God in impossible situations. She lives with her husband and three children in Southern France where they are planting a church. Check out her website at www.relevantprose.com or browse her blog at www.relevantblog.blogspot.com.
