A Good Pop
Essays, Featured — By John Blase on April 9, 2010 at 8:12 am
Did you ever see the movie Parenthood? Shining among Ron Howard’s stellar cast of stars are Steve Martin (Gil) and Rick Moranis (Nathan), two fathers trying their best to be a “good pop.” Nathan is insanely obsessed with his theories about tapping the genius within young children; he reads Kafka at bedtime to their daughter, not yet 4, and proudly demonstrates that she can look at a group of paper dots and calculate the square root of the total. In a compare/contrast scene, Gil’s son is in the backyard with a mop bucket on his head, running into a tree, backing up, and doing it over and over again. As Gil watches from a distance, you can feel the crushing weight of not measuring up.
I have lived for a great many years in what we’d call the christian culture. And some days I still do. I have observed a growing trend toward raising “spiritual champions” – kids who have memorized all the power verses and have the patches to prove it, and if anyone should ask, they can not only define but defend their worldview. Dear lord. And with each passing day, this goal is pressed upon younger and younger children. We started out focusing on teens, then it was the tweeners, now its the pre-readers. We’ll rant at Nickelodeon for essentially marketing to newborns, but we’ve got emphases nowadays to help elementary-age children discover their spiritual gifting and become leaders in matters of social justice. My, my.
Suffer the little children to come. When Jesus breathed those words, I wonder if he had in mind little spiritual champions adept at apologetics? Or did he really want children with mop buckets on their heads, willing to run into his arms, back up, and then do it over and over again? I’m not talking about smart kids vs. not-so-smart kids…no, I’m talking about children vs. little adults. I’m talking about giving our children a break, quite literally for Christ’s sake. I’m forty-three years old and I’m just now figuring out a little about who I am and why I’m here and which questions matter and whose answers aren’t worth a fig and what I’m to care and not care about in this thing called life. We’re despairing these days over why our kids are leaving the church in record numbers once they’re old enough to do so. There’s no silver bullet for that beast, but I wonder if it might have something to do with the fact that we’ve asked them to put away childish things before they ever had a chance to be a child?
I know that “childhood” is, historically speaking, a relatively new phenomenon, blah, blah, but it seems to me there oughta be days to speak like a child and think like a child and act like a child…and afternoons to ride your bike or shoot hoops until dark or lay in the floor and watch tv and eat Oreos…and unstructured moments to think and dream and wonder and laugh ’til milk shoots out your nose…and parents and grandparents and cantankerous uncles and cockeyed aunts and pastors and community leaders and foster parents and hopefully-we’re-adopting-soon folks willing to lay down the burden of trying to transform our children into something many of us will never be and allowing them to be what they are…children…those still so fresh from God…those of whom such is the Kingdom.
I wonder about these things some evenings when I’m reading Kafka to my children or we’re reviewing the LSAT questions…I so want to be a good pop.
12 Comments
I agree. Our prayers with children are pretty around here. For the most part, we (respectfully) thank Him for things like the beautiful spring weather and Oreos. To my thinking, it’s about their building a relationship with God ~ a deep friendship. Enjoyed your thoughts.
Interesting…this makes me think of all the young children that I’ve seen baptized over the years, at Christmas and Easter services. Is it always appropriate for a child to dedicate their spiritual life to God at a younger, and younger age (six or eight?), when the sum of their theology consists of “Jesus lives in my heart”? I don’t know that there is a clear answer, but it’s something that I wonder about…
Michael, thanks for your thoughts…yes, that’s a tough one…I actually asked ‘Jesus into my heart’ at age six and hold tightly to that experience…it seems so much easier for young children to believe, take a first step early on…maybe we could let the sum total of those young decisions be ‘Jesus lives in my heart’ and let that theology evolve/grow as they do…as you said though, it’s hard to get clarity there.
I like this. I am finding that parenting is very much about on-the-job-training.
A quibble: You use the phrase “spiritual champions” as a negative thing. I never heard the term until Barna wrote that book last year, but if you read it, he’s very much advocating what you say here.
James, quibble on, man…I’m aware of Barna’s book but haven’t read it…I’ll have to check it out…thanks!
John, great stuff man. makes me think of that scene in Little Miss Sunshine, the beauty pageant. we are placing on our kids, all our own needs for success and spiritual championing, because, it didn’t work on us, I guess? Funny how we just pass it on.
I think every kid in America should spend a weekend with you. for their coming of age weekend. John the Baptist, I mean Blase. A little locust eating contest, and some baptizing. Just get some liability insurance.
It’s a cultural phenomenon that extends outside of Christianity. I grew up during the age when parents raised Trophy Kids, who were shuttled between special art schools, ballet class, swim class, English saddle lessons, Pioneer Girls, etc. every day after school. I find myself living the same hectic always-learning lifestyle now, rushing after work to my book club, Tuesday night bible study, artist fellowship, publishing networking event, etc. I think at some point, whether we’re children or adults, it’s important to not just know how to do everything, not just memorize a bunch of facts (whether they be related to Scripture or business), not to prove to others that we have this knowledge and commitment, but that we do make time to creatively explore and daydream. Sometimes we need to bang our head into a tree and sometimes we need to read Kafka. They both inform one another.
Stephanie, I agree, it does swing broad and says much about us and what we hold dear…we do need both sometimes, although I’m still undecided about Kafka.
Thanks for this, John. As my wife and I look ahead to parenthood in the near future, these are great things for us to keep in mind!
Renegade, grace for your days ahead…and remember Paul’s advice to Timothy – “a little wine for the stomach ain’t bad”…
This is tough. I’m torn between wanting my children to experience the clean, wholesome, church-world I did as a child and cringing when another adult attempts to explain things like sin and hell and ‘getting saved’ to my four year old..sigh. Of course I want them to learn, but I believe innocence is one of His best gifts, why spoil it with things that they can’t possibly digest. I struggled with confusion as a child and teen every time I encountered a ‘second-guess-yourself-come-down-here-just-in-case-you-wouldn’t-be-sinning-if-you-knew-Him revival preacher and I think that confusion could just be avoided if we let our children enjoy their innocence and let it wear away naturally, a little at a time.
Verline Ausley