Parenting Is Your Highest Calling And Eight Other Myths That Trap Us in Worry and Guilt

by FIELDS, LESLIE LEYLAND

• ISBN13: 9781400074204
• ISBN10: 1400074207
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-12-16
• Publisher: WaterBrook

Summary

Why am I not a more joyful parent? Why aren't my kids turning out as I expected? Why do I always feel as if I'm not doing enough for my children? Is Parenting Supposed to Be This Difficult? As a mother of six, author Leslie Leyland Fields knows firsthand the insecurities and questions that come with rearing children. In this provocative book, she explores with refreshing honesty the myths that can lead to unrealistic expectations and distract us from God's purposes for our children and for us. These nine myths include: Children make you happy and bring great fulfillment. You will always feel love for your child. Your success as a parent can be measured by your child's behavior. There is one "right" biblical model for family life. Good parenting will result in happy children. Through a close look at God's own life as a parent as well as stories from real-life families, Fields highlights the transforming biblical truths that release parents from the grip of mistaken assumptions. Fresh, provocative insights will lead you to a deeper understanding of God and yourselfan understanding that lifts the weight of guilt and fear and frees you to love your children as God intended. Includes "going deeper" questions for individuals, couples, or groups. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Author Biography

Leslie Leyland Fields is the author of six books, including Surprise Child: Finding Hope in Unexpected Pregnancy. She has received the Virginia Faulkner Award for Excellence in Writing and nominations for the Pushcart Prize and has written for journals such as Christianity Today, The Atlantic Monthly, and Today’s Christian Woman. The mother of six children, Leslie divides her time among parenting, writing, commercial fishing, and teaching in Seattle Pacific University’s master of fine arts program. She and her family on Kodiak Island, Alaska.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Parenting Doesn't Have to Be This Hard	p. 1
Having Children Makes You Happy and Fulfilled: Discovering God's Real Purpose in Giving Us Children	p. 13
Nurturing Your Children Is Natural and Instinctive: Why Biblical Love Is So Difficult to Live Out	p. 37
Parenting Is Your Highest Calling: How Pursuing God First Frees Us to Love Our Children More	p. 59
Good Parenting Leads to Happy Children: Exchanging Shallow Hopes for God's Deeper Purposes	p. 77
If You Find Parenting Difficult, You Must Not Be Following the Right Plan: Learning to Rely on God Rather Than Formulas	p. 99
You Represent Jesus to Your Children: How We Trap Ourselves in a Role We Weren't Meant to Play	p. 127
You Will Always Feel Unconditional Love for Your Children: How Our False Ideas of Love Burden Us with Guilt	p. 147
Successful Parents Produce Godly Children: The Danger of Making Too Much of Ourselves and Too Little of God	p. 165
God Approves of Only One Family Design: Why God Is Not Limited by Imperfect Families	p. 187
The Holy Enterprise of Parenting	p. 209
Notes	p. 215
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