A Father’s Thoughts On His Daughters Wedding Day
Tom Shrader reflects on his daughter Haley's recent wedding, sharing personal insights and biblical principles for parenting. Drawing from Deuteronomy 6 and his own experience, he offers practical wisdom on raising children while emphasizing the importance of being present, providing consistent discipline, and ultimately preparing kids to be independent of parents but dependent on God.
“You brought these kids into the world, they're your responsibility.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: An Examined Life (2002)
Recorded: 2002 at Cannon Beach Conference Center
Duration: 1 hr 4 min
Themes: parenting, fatherhood, marriage, family, discipline, independence, presence, wisdom, father of bride, parent, newlywed, young adult, grandparent, wedding preparation, raising children, empty nest
Scripture: Deuteronomy 6:4-7, Ecclesiastes 12
Theological Themes: biblical parenting, deuteronomy, spiritual formation, christian family, covenant training, biblical discipline, godly parenting, discipleship
Full Transcript
Lisa, thank you very much. Ted, thank you. What a great privilege it's been to be with you and to have such a talented, gifted group of people to help us in our time of worship and get focused.
Hope you had a good afternoon. Let me tell you what I did. I ate and then I slept for two hours. I got up and read and came and ate some more. Now that's about as good as it's going to get. I don't know that we really understood it until we got here, how just physically exhausted Susan and I were. It's been really busy, and I say this not in any way - I mean, our life is a great life, but we have been really, really busy.
Summer camp is probably the hardest thing I do all year. There's about 520, 550 junior high and high school kids that we take over to San Diego, and I do all the teaching for them. I play basketball with them, and I hang out with them, and it's just really exhausting. We came back from that, and when I got back, my now son-in-law informed me that I would speak 17 times in four days, and then we went into our teaching time. We do six services on the weekend, and we came out of that and went into our youngest daughter Haley's wedding, and I think when we got here, at least for me, I really began to realize just how tired I was, so it's been really great. Great to be here and great to be rested. What a magnificent place to accomplish that.
A Father's Heart on His Daughter's Wedding Day
The children being up here tonight, probably the perfect introduction, couldn't get a better introduction for what I want to talk to you about tonight. It was literally one week ago at this minute that I said, let me introduce to you Mr. and Mrs. Tyler Johnson. Literally a week ago right now, just about 7:40, that Haley Schroeder became Haley Johnson, and so I want to talk about that, and I want to talk about it to you, and I just want to share my heart with you. It's pastoral very much more than it is teaching, but I think it's important.
For those of you who are parents of those children that were here, this is really an important message, I think. If you have students in junior high, high school, this is really an important message. If you are one of the young adults who are here, who are not yet married, but probably will be and have children, this is important for you. If you are a grandparent, this is important for you. If you are newlyweds, this may be important for you. I think it's important for me to introduce some newlyweds. We have a couple that have been here two months, been married two months. The Strands, stand up so we can hear some newlyweds right here. Look at these newlyweds. You may need some tips on parenting before this is over. A little Sarah and Abraham deal going on there, I don't know.
The Wedding Video That Started Everything
So I just want to talk to you about this. I'm going to do something, and I hope this does not appear self-serving. If it does, it's just not. You'll have to take my word for it. I want to show you the video that we showed at the wedding, and what we did is the grandparents came in and were seated, and then the groom's mom and dad came in, and then Susan came in and were seated, and then we used this video to start the night. And it is a collage. It's a picture, group of pictures of Tyler and Haley over their life. There were literally hundreds and hundreds, thousands of pictures, so to pick a few was really hard. What we tried to do was just give you a sense of an evolution of 20, 23, 24 years.
The reason I want to show you this is that I hope you will respond to this the way I do when I see videos like this. When I go to a funeral, and it's somebody I don't know, but I see these videos, all of a sudden the video connects me with them. What I'm hoping is going to happen, don't know that it will, what I'm hoping is going to happen is that you're going to see these pictures, and pretty soon those faces will fade away, and you'll start to insert your own children's faces. All of a sudden you'll look at this, and it may be about Haley and Tyler, and in a sense about Susan and me, but it's really about you and your life. So I just want you to look at this. I think it's totally self-explanatory, and then this will provide the introduction for our time together this evening.
How Time Flies
My point in that is for you to see how time flies. There was a little girl standing right here tonight. She was doing all of that stuff in the back, and I'm telling you I saw Haley do that a hundred times, and it was like it was yesterday. When people say it goes so fast, I mean there's just no way to be prepared. It does. It goes so fast.
We had an absolutely terrific 20, almost 21 years with her. We are a very close family. We are real tight. This is by far, because we haven't talked to her. She left. She called from Miami on Sunday morning on the way to Aruba, and that's the last time we talked to her. This is the longest we've ever gone without talking to her. We are really, really close, and this was really a hard thing, and not because he isn't a great guy.
It just was totally unexpected. Haley doesn't like boys very much. I'm not sure she does yet, and I would have never dreamt that Haley would be the first to get married. This is the only guy she's really ever dated, and I kind of set them up because I thought they were perfect for each other, and they are. He's a terrific young man. You saw there, he played baseball at ASU, and they registered him one year, so he was there five years, and rather than waste it, he got his master's degree in those five years, and just a great guy. He's working at the church running our college ministry.
Why I Want to Talk About Parenting
I want to talk to you about the parenting part, and I'll tell you why. We had a couple come to us one night, and they said, we'd like to meet with you, Susan and me, and they came over to the house, and I thought, what in the world could be wrong with them, because they just look like they've got it all together, and they sat down, and they said, we want to talk to you
about having kids. At this point, they didn't have any, and they said, "We hear so many stories about people who are unhappy with kids and how hard it is, but you two just seem to love parenting and your kids so much. Talk to us about it."
I've got to tell you, the greatest thing that ever happened to us in our life are these kids. Every day has been incredible. I remember when they were small, and again, my eyes just went to this one little girl, because she had her hair like hay and was standing back here. I remember when they had the smallest, thinking, "Oh, I don't want them to get bigger," and I'll tell you, when they got bigger, it just got better. There were just more chances to talk to them about more stuff. There's just a constant flow. We're pretty serious, but they laugh, they've got great sense of humor, they can just stick it to you so fast. So I guess, just as I begin, I want to really encourage some of you, especially those of you with these small kids.
Random Thoughts from a Father's Heart
So here are some random thoughts. I want you to think about these random thoughts. I want you to know how I got here. The night after the wedding, I was getting ready to teach a lesson the next day on the atonement, and I got up the next morning and said, "No." Because we teach on Saturday night—we do our first service on Saturday—I said, "No, I want to talk about this." So if these are random and scattered, then that's because they're random and scattered. That's how they came to me. Hopefully you'll get a thought out of this, if not more.
Here's the first thing: This parenting is a 24-7 job. It is 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and to the best of my knowledge, it never ends. Someone has said that once you have a child, it's like a piece of your heart is walking out in the world. It doesn't stop. It is the hardest job on the planet, I think. It needs to be, probably more than anything else, just approached with a lot of common sense. It's so hard and so difficult, and yet what I want you to see eventually is that it's so rewarding.
No Guilt, Just Encouragement
The minute we talk about parenting or marriage in any setting, I see a lot of heads drop, and I see a lot of guilt come to the surface. My objective tonight is not to make you feel guilty. It's to offer you some encouragement, and if you've blown it—and my assumption is somewhere along the way you have—if you've blown it, then you regroup. If necessary, you ask for forgiveness. Some of you may have blown it big time, in which case you're going to have to reload and ask for forgiveness, and you're going to have to do some real serious soul searching.
But here's my view: You brought these kids into the world. They're your responsibility. We tell people at our church all the time, "They're not our kids. They're your kids. Don't bring them to us and expect us to fix in an hour what you've screwed up all week." If that's the case you're in, we can't help you, but we can come alongside, and we can play an important influence and role. But let me make sure you get it: They're your kids.
Remembering Whose Kids They Really Are
Now technically, they're not even your kids. They're God's kids that He's entrusted to you. When the girls were small, I remember one day asking them how many people are in our family, and they said four, and I said "No, two. Mom and me. You two are just passing through here." I didn't realize at the time how true that was going to be.
I will tell you this, especially as you're raising kids: You better make certain that you elevate and keep in focus your relationship with your spouse. I think it occurred to Susan and me in the last couple of weeks, we are about to spend a boatload of time with each other, and one of us is not that excited about it, I don't think. I thank God that He was gracious enough to keep Susan and I communicating and close.
Take Control Early, Then Loosen the Reins
Here's the second thing: Take control of this stuff early and then loosen the reins. If you've got small kids, you need to rein them in, and you need to rein them in tight. That's my view. When we had kids, when our kids were small, I used to take a lot of criticism, as Susan did as well, about how strict we were. We were really strict parents. I don't mean abusive, I just mean we had a lot of rules in the sense that we made boundaries very narrow and very tight.
You know what happened? By the time they were three or four or five, those boundaries started to move away. And I will tell you, we had teenage girls and virtually not a rule in the house. We had almost no rules because they understood how to behave.
We didn't even have a curfew. I'm just one of those where they say, "Well, how old do you have to be to date?" Well, here's the answer I like: You can date when you're ready. I know some 33-year-olds that shouldn't be dating. You know, to say you date when you're 16, all of a sudden on that 16th birthday, that kid wants to date. Maybe they're not ready. And frankly, maybe they're ready for some courting when they're 14. I don't know.
Trust Built Through Communication
We never had curfew. Here's how it would go: The kids would come in and they had free Friday night and they'd say, "We're going out. What time do you want us home?" And I'd say, "Well, it's seven o'clock. Where are you going?" They said, "Well, what time do you want us home?" And I'd say, "Boy, where you're going is going to determine when I want you home. Well, we're going out to eat." "I'd be home by nine, nine-fifteen." "Nine-fifteen? All right, eight forty-five." "All right, nine-fifteen. But why so early?" I'd say, "You're going to eat. I want you to eat. Eat in five minutes. I should be saying seven-thirty here, but I'm giving you some grace to say nine o'clock."
But literally the next night they could say, "What time do you want us home?" I'd say, "What are you going to do?" And they'd say, "Well, there's a ball game and then the boys got to shower and it'll be a group of us. We're going to a movie. We're going to eat. Movie starts about eleven-thirty. Be over about one-thirty." And I'd say, "Be home about two-fifteen."
See, to me, that's good common sense parenting. That's just me. I hate rules. I'll tell you why. Because if you're going to make them, my friend, you better enforce them. So I didn't have a lot of silly rules and we didn't have a lot of things because we were going to toe the line once we said something.
I have friends who used to think we were too strict and they were just from our generation and they named their kids Sky and Cloud and all this stuff. So they didn't have any rules and now they got a 15-year-old that's out of control and they're trying to bring rules. That is really hard to do. Some of you are in that position. Here's what I suggest you do. I suggest you sit down with your 15-year-old and say, "You know what, I haven't been a very good parent for 15 years and things are going to change, my friend, and here are the new rules. And if you don't like it, hit the bricks." That's how I do it.
But I'll tell you, you got these little kids up here. Now's the time. Boom, boom, boom. And I'm not talking about taking away their creativity. I'm talking about putting some borders around them so they're secure in a loving household.
The Security of Godly Marriage
Here's the third thing. Let them experience the security that comes from seeing a godly marriage. It seems to me, and I could be wrong, but it seems to me that one of the girls came home one day and was talking about divorce, maybe even ours, and saying, "Are you going to be divorced?" And what was prompting it was they had seen a setting in school where there'd been a couple that had been married and they were divorcing and they were watching the kids go through it.
I was just at summer camp and I was blown away at how many students, now we have a lot of kids that go with us that aren't part of our church, how many students were talking about the horrific environment they're in. Dad's gone, dad's messing around, mom's gone. Let them see the security that comes from a relationship where dad loves mom and mom loves dad. Let them see how you treat one another, how you talk to one another, how you stay in your God-given roles.
It'd be so interesting for you to ask your eight-year-old, "What is marriage like?" And probably whatever they say is going to give you a pretty clear example of the example you've given them.
Making the Best of Your Situation
Make the best of your situation. Not everybody's in this great situation, this great marriage. Biological, mom and dad together, I know that. We used to talk about dad, we used to talk about Ozzy, now we have to say Ozzy Nelson, okay? Not Ozzy Osbourne anymore. But we used to talk about Ozzy and Harriet and now we talk about Ozzy and Sharon, the Osbournes.
Not everybody's in a perfect situation. Some of you are married to a spouse that is not only not walking with the Lord but maybe ambivalent toward, maybe gone. In a world that's filled with disposable everything, you let them see that your commitment to the marriage is unwavering, that nothing's going to change that commitment no matter how hard it gets.
You didn't get married in God's economy to be happy. Now you may want that, that may have been your desire, but you made a mistake. No person can make you happy. You're in that marriage to be holy, to let God see that.
Teaching What's Truly Significant
Here's the next thing, teach these kids what's truly significant. The world, we talked a little bit about it this morning, the world has a standard and says get stuff and get the $125 shoes and all that goes with it, but God has a standard. We talked about Solomon. At the end of his life, after he'd experienced all of these things, in Ecclesiastes 12, He says this, "There's the conclusion. When all has been heard, here's the conclusion. Fear God and keep His commandments and that applies to everyone."
And the next verse talks about judgment. This is truth. This is reality. Fear God. Obey Him. It gives you perspective.
We had, not this week, the week before, one of the St. Louis Cardinal pitchers died. You heard the story, right? And they interviewed these ball players. And they interviewed the ball players and the ball players said, "What a wake-up call. This just tells us that baseball's a game." And you know what, when I heard about the third guy, I laughed. And I don't mean to be disrespectful. That's the same thing I heard on September 11th. How many times you got to see this movie, my friend?
A Personal Experience with National Crisis
Do you understand Gallup is reporting, and this was, and I'm no clairvoyant, but when that whole September 11th, Susan and I, by the way, were back in Washington. We were in the White House on September 9th, I think it was, or 8th. We were staying right across the street from the Pentagon. We were back there to speak. We got stranded. We were at Appomattox Courthouse. It couldn't have been, I've been waiting and waiting to get there, where Lee surrendered to Grant.
We're walking up to the courthouse where this took place, and this guard comes up to us and says, "We're in a state of national emergency." I said, "Okay." He said, "We got to close the park." And I said, "Well, can we go in and look at the courthouse?" He said, "No, we're in national emergency." I said, "Buddy, we're in the middle of nowhere. There's nothing out here. I'm from Phoenix, Arizona. I'm never going to get here again in my life. I've been dreaming about getting in that house. Can we go in and take a look?" He said, "Absolutely not. We're in national emergency."
Susan and I drove to where we were going. We listened to this on the radio. And to be honest, it didn't sound that bad on the radio. When we checked into the hotel and we saw the pictures, it was a whole different story. Susan and I ended up driving. We were stranded in Washington, Washington area. Amtrak said two weeks, no buses running. We had the last car, a Kia, a little Kia. And we drove the Kia from Washington, D.C. to Phoenix, Arizona. Somebody said, "What's it like?" I said, "I don't know if you saw the movie..."
The Right Stuff, but when John Glenn was reentering the atmosphere, that's what it was like. That's what we did. And I'll tell you what, we thank God for that Kia. We have an airline ticket out of Dulles Airport for September 12th. I don't know where it is. I assume we sent it back to get money for it. It was interesting. Oh, and it was perspective.
And my point was, our church was filled the next Sunday. We didn't get back for it. Somebody else did the services. And they were making plans to accommodate. And I said, you don't need to make any plans. This isn't going to last. And I think, in a sense, we're worse off than we were before. Because now, people weather the storm and say, sure, I got through that. I guess I needed God for a second, but I don't need it much anymore.
George Gallup and George Varner now tell us the church attendance is lower now than before September 11th. I bet you saw something here in Cannon Beach. I bet you saw a bunch of flags and God Bless America stuff for, what, a week, week and a half. Because man just drifts back to his own. If you worship the Lord Jesus Christ, you thank God that He opened your eyes to see that. See, that's reality right there.
You Can't Teach What You Don't Know
Here's the next point. It's not terribly profound, but I think it's helpful. You can't teach them what you don't know. You're the parent. You're responsible for teaching them. If you don't know it, you can't teach them.
Deuteronomy 6: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. And these words which I'm commanding you today shall be on your heart." In other words, it's not just head knowledge, though I need to have it in my head. I need to also have it in my heart. I need to have it from my head to my heart. It's not just raw legalism going through the motions. It's a heart transformation.
"And I should teach it to my children diligently." You are responsible for taking this word and communicating it to your kids. How do you do that? Well, it's lifestyle evangelism. "When you sit down, when you walk, when you lie down, when you rise up."
Let me tell you who models this, and that's my wife Susan. She turned the whole world into a classroom. There would be something. It would be science. And she would say, all the planets go, and Halley's Comet will come back. And do you know why that is? And they'd say gravity. And she'd say, no, God holds it all together. See, these kids are watching you, and you're responsible. Not the schools, not the church. You're responsible for transmitting this truth to them. That's your job.
Values Are Caught, Not Taught
Here you go. And values, it's an old saying, values are caught, not taught. That means you need to be with them. It's the next point. Values are caught, not taught, so you need to be there.
I used to coach Sarah's basketball team. I think it was fourth grade and fifth grade. And I used to tell them, winning, it doesn't matter whether we win or lose. But we only lost one game in two years. We're playing one day, and we beat this team. And the girls are saying, who do we play next? And I said, we play the brown team. And one of the girls said, which one's the brown team? And before I could answer, one of the other girls said, you know, that's the team where none of the parents come to the game.
If values are caught, not taught, then you have to have proximity to teach them the values. They have to be with you. You can't do this from a distance. You have to be there. You have to be with them. Talk about all of this more in a minute.
They Need You in Their Corner
Here's the last thing. They need you in their corner. They need to know that you are with them.
This is a card that we found on Saturday noon, right after Haley and Tyler left on their honeymoon, and Haley left us this card. And I'm not going to read it all to you, but there's some things in here that are interesting. "Dad and mom, I can't even write down how much you guys have taught me and shown me and loved me. I could never write down how much I appreciate you. I am who I am today because of your work and your love and your effort, your time. Couldn't have asked for two better parents."
Listen to this. "You're my biggest fans and supporters. Thank you for all you did to make today possible. Thanks for loving Tyler and truly making him part of the family. Thanks for never giving up on me, even when I already had." The first time I read this, I missed the way she signed it at the end. "I am always your little girl, Haley."
She said, even when I gave up, you were right there. You may not realize it because your life can be tough. You're out there in a marketplace, and sometimes jobs get lost and quotas don't get made, and there has to be downsizing, and you're part of it, and you think your life is tough, and it is, and I got that figured out. But do you know the life of a third grader sometimes is pretty tough too? Sometimes a third grader has it pretty hard too.
It may not seem like these world issues that you wrestle with, but a third grader has it pretty hard too, and to come home and to have to put up with a bunch of unnecessary grief from you is silly. You ought to be in their corner to encourage them. I'm not talking about blowing smoke at them. I'm not talking about psychobabble. I'm talking about just being there and being supportive.
The Ten Most Common Parenting Mistakes
So those were the random thoughts. Let me think about 20 minutes, and I made a list of the 10 most common mistakes I see in parenting. Let me do a thousand disclaimers here. I'm not an expert, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, here you go.
Number one, correcting your failures through the lives of your kids. In my life, and I think Susan would probably agree with this, but I don't want to speak for her. In my life, there's a lot of things that I regret. Probably the two biggest is I just wasted college, and in retrospect, that was just part of it. You know, it's the old George Carlin line,
If you remember the 60s, you weren't part of them, and I just wasted college. But here's my biggest regret: that we only have two girls. If you saw the pictures of them growing up and you saw they are beautiful, godly women, I wish we would have had more.
Here's why we don't have more. I didn't want to have any boys. I am one. I know what they're like. I don't want to have any boys.
Tyler is the nicest young man you would ever meet. He's extraordinary. Real low-key, obviously an athlete, very competitive, but really mellow. Well, before he was converted, he wasn't that way. They told two stories about him. We had a great rehearsal dinner. All his family and friends were in, and they're just telling stories.
Tyler's Stories
They told two stories about Tyler. One, the boys were five and six. There were a bunch of boys in the neighborhood, and they were going to have a contest to see who was the bravest. So they had a big hill in front of their house. So the contest was everybody get a big wheel, and then you'd ride down it as fast as they could.
Some of the kids dropped out. Then the next time you went down with your feet up in the air, some of the boys dropped out. Next time you went up with your feet in the air and your hands in the air, and some of the boys dropped out. Tyler said, "I'll go up with my feet in the air, my hands in the air, and my eyes closed."
Well, Tyler takes off, and he runs into a parked car. He comes out. There's blood everywhere. They run and get his mom. His mom comes out. One of the boys had run in and got their dad's bowling trophy and came out and said, "Tyler, you won. You're the bravest." They took Ty to the hospital. This is great. And the guy in the emergency room, the doctor, had the day before taken out a bunch of stitches up here at Tyler's head, and now he put in more down there. This kid was tough.
And they told a bunch of them. This is my other favorite: his neighbor, this young guy got a BB gun. So they'd go out back, and they'd shoot cans and stuff, and his mom said, "Don't you ever let anybody in front of you. You be very careful with this."
So they're standing there one day, and Tyler said, "What do you think it would be like to get shot with a BB gun?" I said, "I don't know." And Tyler said, "Aren't you curious?" And he said, "Not really." And he said, "Well, I'd like to know what it's like to get shot. So I'm going to walk down here, and then you shoot me."
And he said, "Well, Tyler, I can't shoot you. My mom is going to kill me if she comes out, and I'm shooting you." Tyler said, "She's not going to come out. So I'm going to go down here." He goes down about 30 yards. He said, "I'm going to bend over. You just shoot me. Just shoot me with this gun."
So Tyler walks down about 30 yards, and he's bending over, and he says, "All right, shoot me." Well, the guy's mom came out. And she's saying, "Yale," that was the boy's name, "Yale, come here." And Tyler can't hear this. And Tyler's down there going, "Just shoot me. Hurry up and shoot me. I want to see what it feels like."
Why I Didn't Want Boys
That's why I didn't want boys. I'll tell you the real reason. I was scared to death I'd screw him up. I was scared to death that I would take this little boy and try to turn him into the basketball player I never was or the baseball pitcher that I never could quite do or make him into a scholar, which obviously I wasn't, or now try to turn him into Charles Spurgeon.
I think that's something we do. I see that a lot in dads and moms. We do it in a variety of ways. It may be athletics. It may be music. It may be academics. We try to turn this kid into something that we never were. We try to fulfill our life through these kids.
Setting Standards Based on Others
Here's the second thing. We set standards for our kids based on what other people think. I'm going to mess up the months, but I think Sarah was like 15, 16 months old. I'm at work one day. I'm talking to a guy. He's got a daughter who's 13 months old. The kid's potty trained. Sarah's not.
I came home. I said to Susan, "What's the deal with Sarah? Why is Sarah not potty trained?" She said, "Well, you know, I don't know." I said, "Well, you must be doing something wrong in this." She said, "Well, I don't think I'm doing anything wrong." I said, "Well, you got to be. I mean, is she slow? What is the problem?"
She said, "Tom, are there any of the people in your office still wearing diapers?" I said, "No, no, they're not." She said, "You'll get it."
Now, why do I care if she's potty trained or not? You know why? Because I'm concerned about how other people view me.
The end of her first grade year, Sarah got her Iowa basic skills score. I opened these up, and my hands began to shake, and I discovered that she was average. So I had to do a couple of things. First thing, I sat her down. I said, "Okay, Sarah, I want you to understand something. You're average, and this comes from your mom's side of the family. You get this from me. It's averageness." Who cares?
I mean, sometimes you want your kids to behave in such a way. That's why you're driving over to see some friends. You're right around the corner, and you stop, and you say, "If you act up in there, I will beat you like a dog. I want you to understand." Why? By the way, you ought to have that standard all the time. I don't mean beat kids. I'm saying you ought to have that standard behavior all the time. But see, you're with friends, and you're figuring they're going to judge their kids or your kids by you. So you set these standards.
Biblical Model for Marriage
Here's the third thing. Failure to provide your kids a biblical model for marriage. It's very similar to what we talked about before. Society, I believe, has really confused the roles in marriage, and clearly what God says is His role for marriage is pretty lost right now.
For Mother's Day three years ago, I always think the Mother's Day message is a cop-out. I always think the pastors, they always give moms a pass and then drill the guys. So on Mother's Day, they'd go, "M is for the new...
year. And then on Father's Day, they go, "You're slugs, you don't lead, you don't do anything." So I was determined to break this mold. Isn't that true though? That is absolutely true. They just beat the guys on Father's Day, and then they treat the moms like they're some sort of queen on Mother's Day.
So I said, well, I'm going to shake this up. Mother's Day three years ago, my message was "Wives submit to your husband." I figured, let's balance this out. And then on Father's Day, I did "Husbands love your wives." But those are God's roles for marriage.
You all got all excited when I said a timeless God doesn't produce dated material, but it's interesting. Oftentimes in the application of marriage roles, we'll go, "Well, then context, mutual submission, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." Well, let me tell you what the Greek says. The Greek says, wives submit to your husband. That's what He meant to say. He's saying there's order in the family. Husbands love their wives and nurture them. Let the kids see this role.
Don't Substitute Material Things for Consistent Love and Attention
Number four, here's a mistake. It's to attempt to substitute material things for consistent love and attention. This is a big word right here. Consistent love and attention.
I want to read to you from Senator Barry Goldwater's autobiography. I presume that since it's his autobiography, he's not misquoted, although Charles Barkley says he was misquoted in his autobiography. So that's interesting. Charles Barkley—one of the great things, I don't know how into sports you are, but when Charles Barkley was in Phoenix, it was perfect. There used to be just a little section in the sports column where it was "Barkley's quote of the day." But one of my favorites was they asked him at Auburn if school was hard. He said, "Well, not really hard." He said, "Well, tell us about it." He said, "Well, one of the courses I liked was music appreciation. I got an A in that." They said, "That must have been something." He said, "Well, it wasn't that hard. They brought in a girl. I sat down in a chair. She played the piano. She got up and left, and I said, 'Man, I really appreciate that,' and they gave me an A." So he said it was a pretty good course. "I like school."
Here's Barry Goldwater, and he's reflecting. He said, "My wife was always pleased when the family was together." Now, it's interesting to me, he doesn't say he was. "Every laugh from our children and grandchildren brought a smile to her face, and I was pleased she was happy." It just seems like an odd way to phrase this to me.
"Looking at her, my mind wandered back through the years. Peggy brought up our children virtually alone for many years. Joanna was born in 1936. The others soon followed. Just five years after Joanna was born, I left, except for infrequent liberty, for four and a half years of military service during World War II. Little Peggy was born while I was in India during the war." Well, you can't blame that. I mean, that's war. That's life. That's the way it is.
Here's the problem. "Even after I came home, the hours at the store were long, and local politics took more time away from the family. I had tried to make up for this by taking Peggy and the kids on camping and rafting and photography trips, but Peggy and I were happiest alone."
Nine pages later, that's page 363, on page 372, the senator writes this. "I've thought long and hard about my relationships with Joanne and Barry, two of his kids. Both are stubborn and headstrong, just like their father. Both are outspoken, yet none of this explains the distance that increased between us over the years."
I can explain it to you, my friend. It's on page 363. "Even after I came home, the long hours at the store and local politics took time away from the family." You gotta be there.
Being There Matters More Than Any Position
He's going to run for president. Who cares? Who cares if you're president of the United States? I'm telling you, and I mean this, and this isn't hype, there's not an office, a job, a position in this world that could have brought me more satisfaction than standing there last week and being able to say with a clear conscience and a heart filled with joy, "Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce to you Mr. and Mrs. Tyler Johnson."
I don't buy all this long hour stuff. Most of it, gentlemen, most of it is to satisfy your own inflated ego. That's what I've observed. And most guys will stay at work rather than go home. I'll tell you why, because it's easier at work. Work's easy. You just get up on the phone and you say, "All right, Seattle, give me Minneapolis, give me Indianapolis, get Atlanta, Atlanta, get Dallas. I want this stuff and I want it shipped and I want it shipped tomorrow." And then they ship this stuff.
And then you go home and there's a 15-year-old and you go, "What's that in your ear?" And he goes... Now that's work. I used to watch guys who would sit around the office and they'd talk about working 60, 70 hours a week and I discovered that most of it was wasted time. Most of it was to support a lifestyle that was artificially exorbitant to do nothing more than to fulfill somebody's pride.
Were you there on that kid's first day of school? I used to go, and granted, and let me give you a little relief here. Granted, I have a job that has a little more flexibility than most, although I didn't have that job all of their school life. Every time they did something, I was at that school. And I'll tell you something, a lot of times I was the only dad there.
And then you do what the senator does. "Well, we take them to Disneyland. We take them on a cruise. We have a big weekend." See, what happens is you're trying to substitute, you're trying to substitute material things for consistent attention and love.
Quality Time vs. Quantity Time
Haley was not very old, and I asked her one time, I was getting ready to teach on parenting, I said, "What do you need, quality time or quantity time?" She wasn't old enough, she said, "I don't know what you're saying." And I said, "Well, quality time is when we talk and we read and we hang
Quality Versus Quantity Time
Do you need quality time or do you need quantity time? Here's what she said: "I need quality time and lots of it." That's right.
Since we already have alienated you, let's just push you over the edge here. Number five: moms pursuing careers outside the home at the expense of your kids. Again, I don't say this to offend you, and I probably shouldn't even do this. I would do this at church with our people. But it's just one of the things that I've seen.
There's a lie that permeates the culture, and the lie goes like this: you need two incomes to survive. I don't buy that. You need two incomes to survive, maybe at a specific level. The guy that heads up our junior high, high school department, now college, he's got four boys, and these are four real boys. They are six, eight, ten, and twelve. These four boys all sleep in a ten by ten room in two bunk beds. They don't know that they're deprived.
I had a gal that worked with me, and she was having her first baby. She was going to have the baby, and then she was coming back to work. She came into me, and she said, "What do you think about this?" I said, "Let me just ask you a question. Does a newborn baby need—and this will be multiple choice, and please don't answer now—does a newborn baby need A, a jeep, B, a swimming pool, C, a mommy?"
The Daycare Deception
There was an interesting story about a lady who was a working career gal. She decided she was going to have a baby, and then she was going to put the baby into child care. I cannot remember what city she was in. Something tells me it was up this way, but I could be wrong.
What she decided to do was to pick out the best daycare center, the one that was supreme, the number one one, and then go and get a part-time job there. That was her way of checking it out. After working there a week, she said, "I would never place my child in that environment." Let me tell you, there's no daycare provider in the world that's going to love your kid like you do.
I just think that there's—you know, Hillary Clinton. Aren't we glad to be done with those two, by the way? Remember when they questioned her the one time? This is before she had to come back and lie about her husband's indiscretions. She said, "I'm not going to sit home and bake cookies." Remember that line?
Why you women shouldn't just rise up in rebellion against that, I don't know. But you know what? That's the arrogant, subtle attitude. She believes you're an idiot for staying home because you got to look out for you. You brought these kids into the world, ladies. You got to be committed to them.
Working Mother magazine said 85% of wives and mothers who have full-time careers would rather be at home. And they say the number one reason they're working is because the husbands make them. Gentlemen, if that's you, you on the way home, tell your wife to go in and quit.
The Power of Words
Number six, we'll just let you think about that one a little. Number six: using your mouth to deflate your kids. Let's do this exercise. I don't know what time we're supposed to stop. Do you know? I won't be long because these points are a little quick, but I want to do this exercise.
Think of three people who have influenced you in your life the most. Let's just take a second and you think about it. Three people who have had a real impact on your life. Now, I would presume you would think of maybe a parent or a mentor or a protege or a friend. Maybe it's a distant influence like an author. Most of you tend to have thought of somebody positively.
When somebody asked me that question, here is who I thought of: Miss Julie, my kindergarten teacher. I didn't want to go to school. The first day that my mom walked me to school, the minute she turned around, I let her get down the road and I followed her home. I didn't want to leave my mommy. I don't like leaving her now. Miss Julie is who I was entrusted to.
The Kindergarten Catastrophe
We had a room, a kindergarten room. You walked downstairs into the basement of the school and you made a left and there was the room. The room was not much larger than this platform from wall to wall in depth. We had these rectangle tables and we sat about four kids—if we were crowded five and six—at the table.
We're there about a week and we're coloring. We're coloring two kids playing in the snow with snow suits and mittens. We turn them in. I'm doing something else and Miss Julie says, "Whose picture is this?" And she holds up—well, I look and it's mine. I said, "Wow, at such an early age, I'm about to receive public affirmation for a gift."
She said, "Everybody look up here. Look up here. Look at this. He—what's your name? Tom. Tom colored this. I want you to see this. He's got a kid here in a red snow suit and orange mittens. Don't you ever, ever, ever put red and orange together again."
Now, that was 47 years ago and I'm pretty much over it. Isn't that amazing? 47 years ago, I could walk you to the room and take you to where it happened. Miss Julie by now has to be dead and one would assume in hell, for eternity next to that lady in the red sweater and the orange pants, I hope.
Labels That Last
Isn't that amazing how much those words come in? We had a kid I went to school with. He was a great kid. But from the second grade, they told him he was the dumb guy. "You're the dumb guy. You're the slow one. You're stupid." We got to high school and they said, "You're in dumb English. You're dumb."
He was a great kid. You know what he did? After a while, they told him he was dumb, so he just figured, well, I am dumb. The last I heard, he was finishing up his PhD at the University of Michigan. You can deflate these kids so easily.
Love Without Limits
The seventh thing is thinking if you love your kids enough, you don't have to discipline them. Jim Dobson says that's the number one mistake we make in childbearing. I think this, if you'll think with me logically, in most...
instances, mom's gone, dad's away too much, we're throwing stuff at them, we're parenting out of guilt, so now it's time to discipline them. We're not going to put the hammer down because inside we know we're responsible for some of this. If you love these kids, one of the first things you will do is provide them good, constant, loving, consistent discipline.
Three more things and then you get to go. Number eight, never apologizing to your kids when you're wrong. What a mistake.
The Importance of Apologizing When You're Wrong
Sarah was about five or six and I came in one day and I had had an awful day, some deal went sideways or something and I'm just not doing well and tried to kick the dog and it ran. So I'm looking for somebody, Susan's gone, and here's Sarah. So I start on Sarah and I throw a little something at her and she comes back and boom, there I go, I launch. And I said, "You get down to your room, you stay in that room, you may die in that room, you get down to that room and stay in that room."
So Susan comes in. Now, ladies, I want you to see how she does it. Susan doesn't talk to me when Sarah's there. Now Sarah's gone and she said, "Tom, you blew this. You're wrong. You messed up. Sarah didn't do anything. And whatever she did, she certainly didn't deserve that kind of response from you." I said, "Well, what should I do?" And she said, "What do you think you ought to do?" And I said, "Well, I ought to tell her I'm sorry." She said, "Well, go tell her you're sorry."
So I went down and there's Sarah. And you need to know, we're not a, I don't know why, every time I look, I've looked at that one video, those pictures now, 15 times and every time I look at it, I cry and I think I'm getting a little softer touch in that way, but we're not a real crying family. Our girls, Susan, Sarah, Haley, they're iron women, man. They don't cry much, even as kids. And Sarah's sitting there and she's not crying, but the tears are coming down her cheeks and she's hurt.
And I went in and I said, "Hey, Sarah, I'm really sorry." She said, "It's okay." And I said, "No, I really blew it. I'm sorry." And now I kind of got my head on her shoulder and I'm crying a little bit. And she said, "Don't worry, Dad, you do this all the time. You'll be okay."
Here's what I'll give you this tip. This is something that I think is right, something I've observed in every human relationship. If the other person knows you love them and you care for them and they can trust you, you can make all sorts of mistakes and they'll forgive you. They just do. You can mess up and you know what? They'll just say, "Oh, he's having a bad day. That's just the way he is. He's having a bad day." I find the same thing at church. At our church, we tell people this: listen, don't judge us by our mistakes. Judge us by how we handle our mistakes. And the currency we trade on is trust.
Exposing Your Kids to Biblical Teaching
Here's the ninth thing: not making certain your kids are continually exposed to biblical teaching and a Christian worldview. I'm thinking, especially as kids get older, there's something about a 12 or 13 or 14 year old where they just naturally start to seem to rebel. I had a discussion one night, in fact, with Dr. Dobson about this. We were up and talking about some stuff and my kids were getting older and I was teaching a lesson to him and a group that he had there. And I was talking about how their kids' desire to please their dad, heavenly Father. And he said, "They grow out of that. And there's a natural rebellious time."
And I'm saying, "Well, I don't know about natural rebellious, that's sin." But there is that time when all of a sudden those kids do seem to want to flex their wings. And I've noticed that parents have a tendency to back off a little bit there, to maybe say, "Okay, you don't need to go to the youth group." I personally think that's a huge mistake. I think you make them go. If they came to you and said, "I don't like math," you wouldn't say, "Oh, well then you don't need to go to school. They're just going to turn you off on math."
Can I say it again? You're the parent responsible for them. I don't think you back off. I think you keep the Christian worldview in front of them. Having just come back from summer camp, let me tell you something. These kids can look distracted and all this stuff, but they hear every word. God, I believe, is sovereign and God will work in their life, but He's going to work through His word and through His people. And if all of a sudden you take your junior high kid out of that, I think you're making a mistake.
Choosing Church Over Sports
And since you're already so offended by just about everything else, let me add one thing to this. I think if you've got a 15-year-old that has to choose between church and youth group and all that goes with it and sports, you choose the church. And that's not very popular.
We've got parents whose kids are really good baseball players and soccer players. And a lot of the best team stuff and the AAU stuff happens on Sunday and they can't be in church. But these kids, Biff's going to grow up and Biff's going to play for the Mariners. Biff isn't going to play for the Mariners, my friend. And I'll tell you why. He's got your genes, buddy. He isn't going to play. It isn't going to happen. And you've taught this kid that sports is more important than church.
So now he grows up and says work is more important than church. Where did he learn that? You taught him that in your house. Nothing replaces church. That's the most important relationship outside of your family that you have on this planet. And I see parents making this mistake all the time. Oftentimes they'll say school is more important. School is not more important. Nothing's more important.
Hold Your Kids Loosely
Here's the last thing: hold your kids loosely. The mistake would be holding them too tightly. Some of you, you got all of those first nine down pat. We have a lot of parents in our environment who are scared to death their kids are going to screw up. And they're trying to
protect them and they're trying to shelter them and they're trying to hang on to them. And I think it's a mistake.
Let me tell you a story and then we're done. It was Splash Mountain. Sarah always loved to go on rides. Haley was always afraid of rides. And this was the day, it was our second and third trip to Disneyland. This is the day that Haley's going to go on Splash Mountain.
So Susan and Sarah are in the car behind us. Haley and I are in this log. There's the two of us in there. She's sitting there between my legs. And you can hear in the distance, you can hear, "Ah!" She said, "Oh, I'm afraid Dad." I said, "Well, I know you are. Hey, you'll be all right." And then you can hear, "Ah!" it's getting closer. She said, "How far away are we?" And I said, "Not very far. It'll be about another 20 seconds or so." "Ah!" And she said, "Oh Dad, we're there. We're there." And she's saying this, "Hold me tight, Daddy. Hold me tight, Daddy. Don't let me go. Daddy, hold me tight."
Knowing When to Let Go
I promise you, last Friday night when we were standing there and they're singing, "Listen to My Heart," I looked down at Haley and I could see her saying, "Hold me tight, Daddy. Hold me tight. Hold on to me." Well, it's time to let her go.
It's cute when that kid's six, it's cute when they say, "Hold me tight, Daddy." It's not so cute when they're 33 saying, "Hold me tight, Daddy. Hold me tight. Let me go." It's the natural flow of things. It's just the way things are. It's part of life. They're not your kids. They're God's kids that He's entrusted to you.
And from day one, Susan and I had one overriding principle in parenting, and that was to train these kids to be independent of us and totally dependent upon Him. People say, and I've noticed Susan answer the question and I do too, "How old is Haley?" And Susan, in fact, somebody I think at dinner the other night said, "How old is Haley?" And she said, "Well, she's 20, almost 21." And it's like we're saying, you know, she's 20, she's a little young for this. That's what I find myself saying. She's 20, she's young.
She's more mature at 20 than I was at 40. She's ready for this. God's prepared her for this. You make a giant mistake. Let me tell you, my friend, if you hold on to these kids too tightly, there's a whole group of people who I think are making this error.
Investment, Not Sacrifice
It's a difficult job, but I want you to know that it's worth it. There's a word that's associated with parenting. I hate the word. The word is sacrifice. This isn't a sacrifice. This is an investment.
I remember one day coming home. We'll close with this. The girls were really small. They were 20 months apart, I guess, 18, 20 months apart. And I walked in the door and I said, "How are you doing?" Susan said, "I'm not doing well." She said, "It's been a hard day. All I've said is no, no, no, no, no, no, no. All I've done is change diapers. All I've said is no, I need to talk to an adult. I need to talk to an adult. Say something to me." And I said, "Well, what's for dinner?" "Something else, you idiot."
And I remember saying, "Suze, I know how you feel, buddy, but you got a long term job here. You aren't going to see the results for years, maybe decades." But I'll tell you, one week ago tonight, she was beaming ear to ear because we took the young baby that God gave us. We were good stewards, not perfect parents. We were good stewards. We followed the very stuff I've been talking to you about. And I think we're able to say last Friday, "You know what, God, we did a pretty good job. And God, she's yours. And whatever you have for her, we're ready for."
Being Salt and Light Through Parenting
I'll tell you, in a world that's struggling to find values, there's no place they're more confused than in this area of how to handle kids and parenting. And I think if you ever needed to go back to the basics, it's in this area. It's not particularly complicated. They need your time, your energy, and your love. They need you more than they need stuff.
Kids haven't changed. In most instances, when we get a kid and there's problems, there's almost always problems at home. Not always, but almost always. And correctable problems. You fix it. It's worth it.
I want you to understand something. It's worth it. I believe you have a social contract with these kids. I believe when you bring them into the world, you're saying to a large extent, you're going to put your life on hold to make certain that you steward these kids. It's a huge job.
We're always talking about being salt and light. If there's ever an area that we ought to be salt and light in the world, it ought to be in the way we treat and handle our kids.
The Seasons of Parenting
I know that's hard stuff. I mean, it really is. Lisa's saying she talked about seasons. And you have seasons in your life. As you look at those collages, those videos, you're at different seasons with your kids. I just want you to know that it's absolutely worth it.
And grandparents, just a special word to you. Most of you have time and freedom, and you can play a huge role in these kids' lives. And they love Papa and Mama, Nanny and Grandpa. My kids light up when they say "G-Ma's on the phone." My daughter's favorite picture is sitting in our den, and it's a picture of my dad down at Sea Ranch laying out sound asleep. "There's G-Pa."
Let's pray. Father, help us understand how important this is. In a world that tends to minimize this stuff, and seems to be confused on it, and is trying to be politically correct and socially correct, God, let us be biblically correct. God, let us love kids.
There's no shortcuts here. It takes time and energy and effort, and it's hard work. And it oftentimes means us investing in a way that we prefer not to. There's times when we'd love to just curl up with a book or go play golf. But there's things that we need to do. God, help us understand that that is the role you've assigned us to. And let us accept it, not as a dreary duty, but as a joyful privilege. We pray that in Jesus' name. Amen.