Maybe there isn’t a maternal or paternal instinct to love a child. There are scholars, who, having combed through the histories of people, question the assumption that parents naturally will care for and love their children.

And you can see why.  An ancient Roman gutter was found clogged with the bones of over a hundred discarded infants.  18th century European trash heaps also reveal this grisly reality.  Many ancient writers spoke of infanticide being a normal and needed practice.  And we don’t even need to get into teeth being pulled for adult dentures, or 70 hour work weeks in dangerous conditions, or fires being stoked for sacrifices, or…you get the picture.

It is hard for us to imagine this because many of us live in a culture where parenting children is termed a sacred responsibility, where child abuse raises our hackles more than adult abuse, where children are seen as our most prized possession.

And thank goodness.  This is a good thing.

But there is also this: part of a culture that reveres our children is an expectation some feel to spend every waking moment with them.  To go to every game.  To attend every event.  To make sure they’re never getting bored, or missing any opportunity.

And the results of that, in part, are burned-out, worn-out, stressed-out parents.

Long term, this isn’t a good thing.

A couple of years ago an author made news for suggesting that she often would get bored staying home with her very small children.  It was a daring admission in a time when we are supposed to constantly dote on them.

But…there it is.

Now, I love my kids.  The last thing they are…are boring.  In fact, I have two amazing children that  are loving, brilliant, funny, full of life, etc.  You know, like your kids.  But even though I have great kids, they wear me out.  They can bring out the worst in me, if you want to know the truth: impatience, anger, greed, selfishness.  Being a dad is great…and the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

And so here’s my takeaway.  We have moved in the right direction with how we see our children.  We no longer see them as they have historically been seen: as property, or as better seen than heard, or as free labor, or as defenseless people to take from.  We now protect them, feel the responsibility to be with them, pour our resources and time and energy into growing them into the people God created them to be.

Yes and amen!

But…we can go too far with this.  Sometimes we can focus so much on our children’s health and growth that we forget about our own.  And guess who suffers when we make that mistake?  We do…our partners do…and our children do.

This rhyme and season to our world and to our lives also holds for our relationships with our kids.  There are times when we need to put our crap down and read to our kids, or play games with them, or help them with their homework, or just sit there and wait for them to make the first move.  They need our presence.  It reminds them of the Sacred presence that is and always will be available to them.

And…although we might be our children’s first picture of what God is like, we are not their god.  There need to be times when we step away, and aren’t available, times when we can lick our wounds and fill our tanks.

Working at this kind of rhyme to our day and our week and our year, when we are available to our kids’ needs, and when we are not, is vital to our spirits and family systems as a whole.

And here’s the deal: if we don’t think this through, if it isn’t a rhythm we initiate and implement, it’s just never going to happen.  

Or happen well.

Try playing the drums without ever having practiced.  

Although we might think we are blessing our kids by always marching to their beat, we might actually be becoming a curse.  To them.  To ourselves.  To others.

We are invited to give and receive so much more…if we would pay attention both to our wholeness as well as to theirs.