Can't She Control Her Children?

by Renee Hawkley

I've been thinking about the question a fellow shopper asked in a grocery store checkout line. While observing the behavior of a mother and her unruly young children, the shopper turned to me and asked, "Can't she control her children?"

Good question. Not one to be figured out in the express line.

On second and third thought, this is the question of all time. It first wriggled its way to the top in Genesis with Adam and Eve, seized a firm hold with Cain and Abel and continues to demand full attention through the long and unrelenting thread of history.

The one-word answer to the question, "Can parents control their children?" is no.  They can't. A simple concept, until it gets tangled in the minds and hearts of parents whose hopes and dreams are invested in outcomes that are "best" for their children. That is, after all, the rub.

While they are young, we control our children's environment and attempt to provide them with a foundation for temporal and spiritual safety, health, material needs, education and opportunities for development. But our children do not belong to us. They are not our property. We do not purchase them or "break" them as if they are horses to be used for purposes of our own.

It is true that as parents, we have the opportunity to influence, teach, bless, direct, guide and lead our children. As we go along, we can learn valuable skills that can help us be more effective in our task of passing the torch to a new generation. We provide examples for them. We love them. We cherish them. We have faith in them. We pray for them. However, in the final analysis, their thoughts, words and actions are their own, not ours.

Look around. Even God doesn't control His children even though unlike us, He does have the power to do so. Maybe that's why we're called human beings. We are the masters of our own thoughts, words and actions. We get to be what we choose to be and to experience the consequences of that being.  It's part of the plan.