Palmerston North Central Baptist

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Our morning English service is

10am until 5th February 2012

Normal service times of 9am and 10.45 resume on the 12th February

Mandarin service is 9am

It seemed like a good idea at the time….

27-1-2012

After nineteen years, one of our children is finally leaving home. I feel pleased for him and myself. Given his sense of excitement you'd think he was being released on parole.

I think it would be fair to say that parents who have any number of children often ask themselves what drove them to conceive? We have three. Three lovely, loud, demanding, busy, exasperating children. It is with a sense of wonder that I look at our largest offspring and ask, "How did a small nine pound bundle of fragility turn into a grunting, muscular monster whose sole purpose seems to be eating?"

Why do we have children? Socio-biologists fly the idea that it’s our biological drive to continue the species; that sexual pleasure is the physical reward of conception. That maybe true for some. For others conception is the punishment for such enjoyment. For us it just seemed like a good idea at the time. Whatever the case, once you start, there’s no turning back.

The vast majority of NZ Parents want the absolute best for their kids. But rarely do parents work out what ‘best’ means in advance. We tend to think of the best as commodities like a house, education, television, computers, toys and sports related stuff. Abstract things like love, security, and moral education are not always seriously considered. Often they are only assumed.

Over the years I’ve had many discussions regarding the raising of children and it seems that parents have one overarching hope – that their kids will be happy.

But what does that mean? How is happiness achieved for kids? My observation is that they are happy when they get the stuff they want, when their dreams are met, when people around them always like them and so on. But this is unrealistic.

Wouldn’t it be better if we taught our kids the value of contentment? What about gratefulness or gratitude? Or perhaps generosity.

But how do we do it?

Nineteen years ago I noticed that our first child was not born with an instruction manual. I have come to realise that it is not the parents who need instructions it’s the children. They are learning about life through us. In that sense we are the instruction manuals of life to our kids. It’s not what we tell them, it’s what they see in us.

When we ask, "What kind of people do we want our kids to become?" We must first ask, "What kind of person am I? What kind of person am I becoming? Am I content, grateful and generous? Am I morally consistent?" These are questions of character. They are also pointers to our children’s future characters.

We all need life mentors, people who show us what it means to be a healthy person in a complex and fragmented world. The philosopher Aristotle called such a person a ‘moral exemplar’, a kind of guide to the good life.

Jesus Christ is such an exemplar. He said, ‘I have come that you might have life and have it to the full’. But to have it we must choose to learn from him.

Who is your mentor? Who do you take your character cues from?

What we sow in ourselves we may well reap in our kids.

Digby Wilkinson 2012

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