PARENTING AS ONE FLESH

Genesis 2:18, 21-24, Matthew 19: 3-6

I want to begin this second sermon in the series “Parenting the Biblical Way” by asking you a question: “Of the time you spent in your family this week, what percentage was spent in the role of father or mother versus the percentage you spent in the role of husband or wife? Think about that.

John Rosemond says that when he asks an audience that question the typical distribution is 90 per cent parenting and 10 percent husband and wife. If you are spending 50 percent of your family time as father and mother you are a child centered family. That means children rule the roost. The appropriate percentage for a family centered family should be no less than 60 percent husband and wife and no more than 40 percent parenting…and that should be only when during a child’s infancy when the demands of the child’s age are high. After infancy the percentages should be 75% husband and wife and 25-30% mother /father.

Now a percentage of 90 father and mother and 10% husband and wife means that the typical American family is in danger of getting lost (if it isn’t already) in the helter-skelter of a family in which children rule the roost so to speak. That is simply not the way God planned it. To repeat what was said in the first sermon, “if you depart from God’s plan in any area of your life, you will experience more and more serious problems than you would have encountered otherwise.” In this case I am talking about the single most important of God’s instructions to married couples.

John Rosemond (author of Parenting By the Book which is being used as a resource for these sermons) states that the nearly universal violation of this one instruction is sufficient to explain the profusion of child rearing problems today’s parents are experiencing.”

The Bible suggests that parenting is best done from within the marriage. One reason the American family worked better in the 1950’s and before is that most married people with children, even those who did not subscribe to the Bible, were married first, parents second. My mother was first a wife and then a mother. That may be a radical statement for some of you but it is Biblical. Similarly my father was a husband first and a father second.

Mom and Dad spent a lot of quality time together. Maybe just maybe that is why their marriage lasted so long. Maybe just maybe that was something all of their children noticed and have tried to be imitators. All five of us children are still with our original spouses.

As children we were not entertained by my Mom and Dad. The evenings were not child centered any more than was the family. The children understood that when their chores were done they were to find things which occupied their time like homework and hobbies. My parents did not participate in my homework chores.

What this arrangement did for us was underscore the primary importance of the marriage. The success of the marriage was far more important than practically any attention any of the children would get. The marriage operated as a family. The marriage raised the children….. and that by the way is the way God planned it.

That is one of many reasons the Bible forbids divorce.

What that also meant for the children was that husband and wife were of one flesh, one mind when it came to raising the children. Now what that meant was that their children were seen through one set of eyes, the children adhered to one plan for being raised, God’s plan. That meant that the aim of raising children was one set of goals, they shared one set of values and acted as one body when it came to loving, teaching, and disciplining their children.

That is what it means to be parenting from within the marriage. When Mom is asked by her child if she can do something and Mom isn’t sure what her husband would say she would say, “I need to check with Dad first.” If the child insists that she needs an answer right away Mom would say then that the answer is, “No.” The same applied to the Father. Parents in this scheme do parenting from the oneness that they assumed when they were married.

For a family to work according to God’s design the husband-wife relationship must be far more active than either parent’s relationship with any child. Husband and wife must be more involved with each other than they ever are with any of their children. Their lives must be centered on the bond of marriage, not the children.

I am confident that there are some among us who are thinking, “Won’t the children feel left out?” the answer is “yes.” But what is wrong with that? After all nothing makes a child feel more insecure than to feel that his parent’s marriage is tenuous and that it could break up at any minute. One of the primary securities I lived with while growing up was that my parents loved each other unconditionally and without any hesitation and that our home was built on a rock. While there weren’t many things I could count on out there in that world I knew home was solid and predictable.

So what does this mean in terms of how these families live together. Here are just a few implications:

Children never share the marital bed…..even as infants.

Parents have date nights every week…… without their children.

Sometimes even mini vacations are planned without the children.

Family events always trump children’s events.

I can see some of you cringing. I can’t tell whether it is because you can’t conceive of being without your children or you can’t conceive of going on a vacation with just your spouse. It goes without saying that I think the Bible suggests that if the children do not occupy the center of attention they will be more independent and therefore will need less maintenance, attract less attention to themselves which makes for a more peaceful home. It also means that when two spouses are paying attention to each other, energy is created which means you have ore energy to raise children. All of us know there isn’t enough to go around already.

Unfortunately the spouse centered family is the exception. Children occupy most central stages in American families. So what are the consequences of this inside out, upside down and backward kind of family kind of child rearing?

The children lack a model of what being truly married is all about. That means that more and more young people either avoid getting married or are only in superficial relationships or enter into marriage for all the wrong reasons. Fifty percent of all marriages now fail in Mecklenburg County.

Children are raised with a sense of entitlement. They become more disrespectful, more demanding and are often outraged at the mere suggestion that they are not number one beyond the sphere of family life. They become irate at the thought that they help out around the house or get a job during the summer. As adults they bring the same sense of entitlement into their own relationships hence more and more marriages break up because “he or she doesn’t meet my needs.”

Children do not receive adequate discipline because parents are more concerned with having a relationship with their children than being their parents. The result is that more and more children develop behavioral problems such as disobedience, disruptiveness and disrespect. Parents are often in denial thinking that they are just being children when in fact they are plain obnoxious.

While healthy children leave home entitled children cannot bring themselves to leave the cozy home where they are number one.

One of the reasons so many people experience divorce is because too many parents do not raise their children from one flesh but from two…..two different perspectives. Many couples divorce right after their children leave because they discover much to their dismay that they no longer have anything in common. That is sad because it is so unnecessary. If only they had paid more attention to God’s plan for their families.

So, what about single parents and blended families and step families? Are there different rules for them? No. Families are families. What is true for married spouses is true for blended, single and step families as well. But that is not what we are hearing from the experts. The only expert people of faith need to pay attention to is the Lord of heaven and earth who has put forth a plan for your family. It is your choice. Amen

This sermon was written and preached by Dr. Jerry D. Bron at the Southminster Presbyterian Church of Gastonia, NC on January 17, 2010. This sermon manuscript is heavily dependent on John Rosemond’s work titled Parenting by the Book.

Parenting the Biblical Way #2 Flash Drive