Oct 23 min read

Soap-Mouth Mama pt. 1

A ruler can be persuaded through patience, and a gentle tongue can break a bone.

Proverbs 25:15

We have all seen the old-fashioned method of cleaning a dirty mouth with the equally old-fashioned bar of soap. (I don’t know where I’d be without my body wash and turquoise pouf). I am envisioning an aged Saturday Evening Post picture with a little boy on a ceramic sink waiting for mom to relieve his awful taste for saying something as vile as ‘shut up’ to his bobby-socked sister.

It was a different picture, the aching look in my teenage son’s eyes that forced me to grapple with just how out-of-control my mouth had become. And before you think I need to put a dollar in the jar for dropping a flagrant curse word…my grievance was much, much worse. I realized my habit of readily communicating my disappointment using cutting words. I know. Deplorable. I was the enemy bringing about long-term damaging effects in my son like shame, guilt, misery, and depleted confidence. My husband and I are trying to raise a young man to know and respond as if he is capable of running a country, leading his family, managing a company, or proclaiming His faith as an academic freethinker. However, my own emotional pouting or torrents were withholding every potentially positive outcome of this young man’s life as “anger does not bring about the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). What a jarring revelation and embarrassing omission.

So, while the promotion of gentle parenting rages, I am going to say something that may astound you…God illuminated to me that this “gentle” parenting method ticks off all the same boxes of verbally demeaning your child; shame, guilt, misery, and depleted self-worth. An opposite reaction is not the answer. Why? Because by definition, with facts being undisputed, it develops in a child’s heart the same anxious-ambivalent response doctors and child specialists have predicated healthy parenting patterns on for years. If your target of good behavior for your child is subjectively dependent on the mood you are in that day, which is fundamental to both of these parenting pendulum swings, you will raise defeated children with broken spirits. What could be worse.

We parents are better than this. Instead, we need to set clear boundaries, clear guidelines, and use swift and decisive consequences when those lines are crossed. The research is endless that your child’s undeveloped brain does not have the ability to reason, make wise choices, or even understand what is best for them 100% of the time until they are around 21! They need your guidance and despite the propaganda, there exists equal research that only you and your loving but firm boundaries enhance your child’s cognitive and emotional well-being. The data supports the doctrine. God isn’t wrong.

This is part one of a two part devotional. Come back next week for part II !

Your Fellow Able Mom,

Amanda

Father thank you for the gift of mothering. Thank you that I don't have to do it blindly, and neither do these sweet mamas. I pray that we would seek you daily and trust you to guide us. Amen

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Email: amanda@ablemoms.org