“You can pay me now, or you can pay me later.”

This 1972 Fram oil filter commercial claims that, concerning vehicles, you have a choice: you can pay a little now—to replace the filter and maintain the health of the engine—or a lot more when it breaks, to fix the damage.

Kids are like that, too. There’s so much hourly, daily and weekly “maintenance” in parenting. Setting sleep schedules, promoting good nutrition, teaching hygiene, enforcing rules . . . none of these are parents’ favorite moments. And while these daily grind tasks are what we signed up for, they can feel depressingly like the sum total of life when kids are young.

The word maintenance comes from the Latin words “manu + tenere” which literally means “hold in the hand.” When we need to examine something, we pick it up for a closer look. We “take in hand” that which we value. You can’t ignore something you’re holding. You notice everything about it: how it looks, how it feels, anything that’s off.

Maintaining anything is costly and requires energy. Usually, it’s effort that doesn’t have an instant or obvious result. Changing an oil filter makes little, observable short-term difference. But it’s the long game that matters. It takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears to care for another human, too. And there’s not much instant gratification from pushing veggies or enforcing rules. Investing the emotional, mental and spiritual energy into guiding another human life along a path worth traveling can be exhausting.
When our daughter was born, our minister visited us in the hospital. He congratulated and encouraged us, and then offered to pray for us.

“Lord, please watch over this precious, eternal soul that you have chosen to bring into your creation and place in the hands of these parents . . .”

His words still knock the breath out of me.

Parenting is a holy calling, a commitment to the long game of navigating the stormy seas of ever-changing culture and guiding your child safely to the other shore.

That takes stamina, because the hardest work of parenting isn’t only when they’re young.

Sure, your 17-month-old may keep you up all night fussing, sick, or refusing to sleep. But your 17-year-old will keep you up all night for entirely different reasons.

While you won’t face the same challenges at ages 2, 12 and 22, they will stem from the same human tendencies: selfishness, disobedience, laziness. Two-year-old tantrums morph into teen drama. Whether it’s toys or lunch tables, somebody isn’t sharing. And no matter how good your Mama Bear act is, you can’t make them. Suddenly that precious, eternal soul in your care, is wounded.

And sometimes, it’s your precious child doing the wounding. Yours is the kid who said the cuss word at school, punched a kid on the playground or purposefully excluded her classmate. Now you’re trying to find the “why” behind those awful things, because you taught them better, so there must be a reason.

And oh, when the reason is just sheer, willful disobedience that flies in the face of all you believe, you’re faced with a hard truth. The only person who can deal with this is you. The parent.

Sure, extended family, teachers and youth ministers will support you along the way. They’ll brainstorm strategies, reinforce your expectations and cheer you on. But you, the parent, must do the hard work of enforcing whatever rules you have set that reflect the values you’re attempting to instill.

Disciplining our children is never fun. It’s never easy. It feels terrible.

But a major mistake parents make is laying down rules they’re not prepared to enforce. This teaches children not to respect authority, that rules are only rules when convenient or during certain moods. If parents are tired or busy, the rules are subject to debate.

To some it seems easier to let them have their way. Let them eat junk instead of healthy food, watch TV or play video games whenever. But giving in to toddler tantrums teaches children that screaming (or worse, violence) gets them what they want. This is a dangerous lesson in the long run. The child who screams to get her way becomes a disrespectful teen and potentially an emotionally abusive adult; the toddler who’s allowed to hit others when he’s mad, a physically abusive adult. Homes without rules based in shared values, and homes where rules aren’t enforced can create monstrous adults.

Insisting your child has a consistent bedtime is taxing, but do it anyway. Children who are allowed to ignore parents calling their name become teens who ignore those parents’ curfews. Instilling the value “we don’t use our hands to hurt, we use our hands to help” can be exhausting for parents of preschoolers, but it’s the first step to curbing future bullies. And even when you’ve done all these, your preteen or teen may continue slamming up against those guardrails. Hold fast. Continue to set and maintain boundaries. Because in the moment your child wants them the least, they need them the most.

Children who test limits are asking the most important questions: Do I matter to you? How much do you love me? Will you go through hell and high-water to save me from myself?

Yes, my precious child. Yes.

Let our answer always be yes.

(image by Josh Willink / pexels)