How Not to Become the Villain in Your Child’s Testimony

When my kids were little, one of them asked us if we could get a piñata for Christmas morning. Of course! I thought skeptically. The traditional Christmas morning piñata!

I ended up loving the idea. We bought a Darth Vader piñata and plastic lightsabers to smash it with. It seemed wonderfully appropriate to be smashing an evil villain to celebrate the incarnation. Everyone loves to see a bad guy lose and to see good triumph over evil. A great story should always have a great villain. The Christmas story has some classics—namely, King Herod and cosmically, of course, Satan.

Whether through counseling, listening to a Christian testimony, or getting to know a new friend, I’ve been privy to many people’s backstories. It probably won’t surprise you that in many stories, Mom or Dad is the antagonist. Or if not the antagonist, at least the scapegoat.

Even Christian parents can be too strict or too lenient, too preoccupied by work or too focused on their kids, too insistent on good grades or too regimented about sports. But imperfections aren’t villainy, unless we allow them to go unchecked.

We’re all shaped to a large extent, for better or worse, by our families of origin. It’s one thing to reflect on that personally, but it’s a whole new level of intimidating to consider it as a parent. We need a word more emphatic than “daunting” to describe the feeling that our parenting is informing and shaping another person’s story and we might be their story’s villain.

Thankfully, in the face of a monumental task, we can depend on Christ for the strength and grace to parent well for his glory.

Children Aren’t Opponents

One way I can avoid becoming the villain in my family is to ignore the cultural myth that my children are my opponents. My sons aren’t the villains in my vacation stories, the bad guys fostering my busyness, or the burdens that ruined my life.

A main cause of parental stress is being tricked into believing our blessings are burdens. If we think a child is an impediment, it’s no wonder the work of parenting overwhelms us. When we lose sight of love while leading our home, all of parenting devolves into chores robbing us of something. It’s this lack of love that twists an unbelievable gift, a child, into a taxing inconvenience and makes kids and parents enemies.

A main cause of parental stress is being tricked into believing our blessings are burdens.

I’ve heard parents say that the difference between a vacation and a trip is whether kids are present. Even Christians talk as if kids take away more than they offer. It’s part of a common cultural narrative that getting pregnant ruins careers, finances, and fun.

Why do so many of us yearn and beg for children when we don’t have them, and then complain about them once we do? It happens because we forget what the Bible teaches about people: that they’re invaluable even if they turn out to be inconvenient. Psalm 127 calls children a heritage, a reward, and a blessing. Children may be a challenging blessing, but that doesn’t make them a burdensome curse.

We need to remember we’re not victims of our parenting responsibilities. We’re the beneficiaries.

Parents Are Important

Much of what I do with my life won’t have an enduring influence. The daily chores and even my career advancement won’t be remembered long. But my parenting, for better or worse, can reverberate for generations. This work really matters, and I want to do it right, so I’m always thinking about how to do it well.

On one level, it’s easy to understand how parents can become the bad guys. We can all find faults in our own parents. Who will see my failings better or be more directly victimized by them than my kids?

I don’t want to be the villain in my kids’ lives. I hope there’s not some future Christmas morning where my kids are therapeutically smashing a dad-shaped piñata.

I feel the pain my sin causes, and so do my children. I can already see how my mistakes have a ripple effect on their lives. Add to that the fact that my kids will often resist my best efforts and best intentions.

Parenting requires constant effort to not overreact or underreact. We want to protect our kids from harm but not overprotect them and rob them of resilience. We want to provide for them by working but also being home with them, giving our best energy. We want to delight them but not spoil them. We try to make the best possible choices about nutrition, education, and socialization—and, of course, to teach them about Jesus. Even if we get everything else just right, if they don’t trust Christ, they’ll lose it all. It’s no wonder that parenting is so incredibly hard.

Christ Reconciles

Parenting is both important and impossible. It’s important to do well and impossible to do perfectly. That’s an intimidating combination.

It’s no wonder that parenting brings with it bouts with shame, pressure, despair, anxiety, exhaustion, and other struggles. Putting everything we’ve got into the pursuit of the important and the impossible inevitably leads to trials, disappointments, and failures. It’s overwhelming.

Parenting is both important and impossible. It’s important to do well and impossible to do perfectly.

Praise God that he doesn’t leave us to our own devices. If we had only our strength to rely on, if we weren’t empowered by the Holy Spirit, if there were no grace for us, or if God couldn’t help us in our labors, we wouldn’t be more than conquerors; we’d be less than losers. Our households would be hopeless.

We’re sinners raising sinners—a household of people who need Jesus. Not everything we try will turn out perfectly. Not every good thing we do will yield good results. But when it comes to leading our family toward Christ, “let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Gal. 6:9).

In Christ, we’re never parenting alone. He never leaves. He never forsakes. He always helps. He strengthens. He invites us to be unburdened and to find relief in his generous love from all the pressures and stresses of parenting. The gospel is the story of enemies becoming family. In Christ, our families can keep from becoming enemies through his love.