The Balance of Freedom & Control
By my count, there are only two things all parents can agree on. On every other conceivable issue, there are as many opinions as they are practitioners and parents who can’t wait to share them, but on these two we all agree.
One, it goes too fast. Far too fast. Time seems to speed up as they age, and the distance between their first steps and the first day of school is roughly the same as the time lapse between their kindergarten orientation and their high school graduation. There is no real explanation for the disparity. The passage of time is a mystery even Einstein couldn’t solve, and parenting is Exhibit A.
Two, parenting is hard. I mean really hard. Especially in today’s current cultural climate. Even those of us who have educated ourselves with every possible book and parenting theory, and interviewed all of our friends in advance to somehow stay ahead of the curve are no better off. The truth is, no one is truly qualified to parent when they leave the hospital with a newborn in hand, and we all come to grips with that sinking realization as soon as we summon the fourth-floor elevator to leave the maternity ward.
Few phrases seem to capture the experience of raising an autonomous free-willed human being like this one:
When kids are young they’re a handful. When they are old, they’re a heartful.
I’ve read it a dozen times, and as I read it again it still rings true. When they are young you can barely keep up with the daily requirements. Every night at bedtime seems like a hostage negotiation in reverse where you are willing to agree to any list of demands if they’ll just stay in their room and fall asleep. Sleep becomes the rarest and most valuable resource in your ecosystem, and life seems to be reduced to an endless search for this peaceful state that you realize now you took for granted your whole life up until this point.
But when they are old, the weight is no less, it simply shifts. Whereas once you worried about them falling down the stairs or scraping a knee, now you worry about where they are at when midnight tolls on the living room clock and who is going to be driving them home. I knew a parent who used to lament the fact that even though the early days are more demanding than humanly possible, at least you could fix just about any problem with a warm blanket and a nighttime hug. When was the last time that worked for your sixteen-year-old?
The question I’ve been asking weekly for the last fourteen years (the entire length of my parenting career) is; how do I do this right? How do I raise my kids to be the people God has called them to be, and grow a deep lasting relationship with Him? How do I instill in them the courage they will need to be a Daniel is a world that is increasingly looking like the ancient city of Babylon? Those answers have come in fits and starts, and I’ve made as many mistakes as I have found successes. Though I may not have it all figured out, I have learned a few things along the way. One of the word pictures that has helped me most is of a simple schoolyard staple: the teetertotter (or as some of you call it, the seesaw). Believe it or not, it’s a picture of the ever-evolving nature of parenting.
On the one side is the word Control. It stands for all the rules we set when they are too young to know better like “don’t touch the stove when it’s hot,” or “don’t stick your tongue on a frozen flag pole.” Granted those are mistakes we generally only make once, our hope as parents is to have them learn from other people’s mistakes instead of paying the price themselves. This is where we make their decisions for them.
On the other side of this teetertotter is the word freedom. This is their own personal agency and free will. This is where they are entrusted with the time and space to make their own decisions even when there is much that hangs in the balance, and that includes their freedom to make mistakes. This is the scary part of the teetertotter for us as parents. It is the place we worry about all the ‘what ifs’ that might happen if they choose wrongly or start down a dangerous path.
When they are young, the teetertotter tilts up to the left. It is not only reasonable, it is essential. My kids wouldn’t have made it past their second birthday if I allowed them to chase their own erratic instincts into rush hour traffic or to the bottom of a mysterious lake. The early years, the handful years, are the high control and low freedom years of their lives. They may complain bitterly about your Grinch-like grip on their adventurous desires, but you lay your head on the pillow at night knowing well you’ve done your job.
What is less clear for most parents is what the older years, the heartful years, should look like. What does it mean to parent well as they grow older?
As I understand it, the best form of parenting that is most faithful to God’s design for us is one that begins the early years high in control and low in freedom looking like the image tilted high and to the left. However, it ends in adulthood with the teetertotter flipped on its head. Here we graduate them into the real world with a parenting style that is low on control and high on freedom. In imagery terms, high and to the right.
The transition between these two images should be a slow progression leaving room to make mistakes but with a safety net only a few feet below the highwire. We begin the story in our first image, find ourselves level halfway through, and end with full control in the hands of our almost adults.
Now, seeing that in print may terrify some of you. I know it does me. If I were to obey my instings I would be high on control all the way! I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say I’m a bit of a control freak, and it terrifies me to let go. But when we let those instincts rule our decisions for the total of our parenting careers, we contribute to a serious problem many of us have seen—a failure to launch. Actually, there is a problem waiting on each side.
If we are too permissible in the early years and just let them raise themselves, they will make many decisions they were not prepared to make, which may well carry lifelong consequences. They say the human brain doesn’t fully develop until the age of twenty-six—I think we all can agree on that experientially—and many of our kids are making major decisions long before then. However, if we’re too controlling when they finally graduate from our household, we haven’t prepared them for the life they are diving into. We haven’t given them a chance to experience the intoxicating power of free will, and the safety net to make mistakes while they are still home. This is where many kids can either careen off into a lifestyle that we know will do them harm, or remain stuck in a failure-to-launch scenario never able to stand on their own two feet.
Parenting then is a balance, much like a teetertotter, that evolves and changes as they grow. You may naturally lean towards one marker of parenting and choose to operate out of it alone for their whole childhood, but both extremes carry serious potential for harm.
I’ve often marvelled at God’s willingness to allow us the ability to make our own choices. The idea of free will literally destroyed the world He created for us, and ultimately cost Him His only son. Giving us a chance to choose the right choice or the wrong one always carries a high price.
See, the cost of free will is the possibility of pain.
There is no way around it.
But the Biblical story reminds us that life and love are impossible without it.
And so it is with parenting.
So let me encourage you, both those in the early years and those in the later stages. This encouragement stands even for you who have already launched your kids into the wild world of adulthood since kids never reach an age where they don’t in some way still need their parents. Balance well the twin poles of control and freedom. Teach them how to chase after God on their own and make good decisions, but protect them until they’re able to learn those skills. You won’t get it always right, and there will be moments of panic and indecision, but if you follow this path you will lead them well. And hey, I know it might be hard sometimes, but try and enjoy the ride! Parenting may not be easy, but there is nothing else in this world like it.