"Parenting" Book Club - Chapter 8

Couldn't resist this classic. Do you think all those girls are screaming because the Byrds are quoting scripture? Obviously the season depicted here is past - a time when this was considered edgy popular music, a time when this was the worst in rebellious hair fashion, a time when enamored fans wore dresses and sweater sets in hopes of being noticed by the objects of their obsession.

As I read this chapter I was mentally taking note of what season I'm in with each of my children. Rosemond includes some specific questions addressing this on page 185. How are you doing? Are you on track? What steps do you need to take to move toward where you should be?

Solomon, revered through the ages for his wisdom, tells us in Proverbs 20:4, "A sluggard does not plow in season; so at harvest time he looks but finds nothing." (NIV) The NLT puts it this way: "If you are too lazy to plow in the right season, you will have no food at the harvest." Yet we're living in a culture stuck in Season 1. Today's "good mother" is virtually defined by how efficiently she shuttles her children from one enriching activity to the next. We're not "plowing in the right season." And the thing that gets me is that "The Season of Service" is the hardest one! And the longer we let it go on, the harder it gets!

Are you willing to be "counter-cultural" and sacrifice the popular notions of parenting in order to cultivate the harvest God has planned for us and our children? It requires plenty of self-confidence and even more faith to act in a way that flies in the face of all we've previously but errantly accepted as true. I believe that Rosemond is speaking Truth with a capital T in these pages. I believe him when he says that parenting should't be this complicated. Everything he says makes sense to me. I'm eager to move on, so let's forge ahead into Part III - the hands-on, how-to section! On to Chapter 9!