3 Steps to Avoid Living Through Your Children (or Making Them an Idol)

If this is the first blog post in this series that are you reading, please consider clicking here and reading the first couple paragraphs of the first post in the series. In this series, I am not attempting to cast the first stone, but instead attempting to help myself and others avoid as much painful window replacement because we live in glass houses!

Centuries before Christ came, the Psalmist said the following concerning idolatry:

Their idols are silver and gold,

    the work of human hands.

They have mouths, but do not speak;

    eyes, but do not see.

They have ears, but do not hear;

    noses, but do not smell.

They have hands, but do not feel;

    feet, but do not walk;

    and they do not make a sound in their throat.

Those who make them become like them;

    so do all who trust in them.

- Psalm 115:4-8

The worship of idols is an old and pernicious problem. Lest one thinks that it is a bygone, outdated issue that no longer affects us, we need only turn on the TV, go online, or look into our own hearts to see the deep misguided devotions of our day and the tragic sacrifices made by many for popularity, power, wealth, or acclaim. Today's idols motivate the same sort of tragedies that generations far past faced.

One of the saddest sort of idolatries is one in which a parent makes an idol of their child. Today, I want to unpack this subtle sabotage that breaks down the relationships between parents and children, and the pronouns (“yours” and “mine”) that govern that relationship. We will do this in three steps:

Step 1: Am I an Idolater of my Child?

Idols are false gods. They are means to an end. Someone sacrifices to an idol in hopes of getting something back. In light of this description, it is easy to see how parenting can slide into idolatry. Every good parent invests in his or her child. They make sacrifices. Some of those sacrifices are deep and costly. They wake up early to take them to the doctor. They try to help them pay for college. Generally, we want our children to be happy and to be virtuous.

When we make an investment, typically we own the investment, but this is not so with children. Imagine going to a financial advisor and having him say something like, “I want you to invest an incredible amount over the next 20 years in this investment and at the end of the 20 years you will need to let it go.” We would not want to make that investment! That, however, is what God is calling us to do, or at least to risk, when we invest in our children. We have to invest in hope, but not in hope of control.

Here are some subtle signs that you might be on the path to child idolatry:

• Do you spend a great deal more time thinking about their future than your own future?

• Do you find yourself mixing pronouns in phrases like “we are deciding on what college we will attend”? (Note, this can be ok if it means “I am helping my child pick a college that he or she can afford," but it can be a sign that that you are losing the distinction between what belongs to you and what belongs to them.)

• You fixate on grades and ignore effort. A low grade is an impetus for panic rather than thoughtful reflection. Poor grades can be signs that a child is not giving their best effort and parents should take action when this is the problem. But that is not always the case. He or she might have hit a concept that is going to take them a while to digest or they might be honing a skill that will simply take time.

• You find that your child is hiding difficulties from you because they are worried that their problems will break the “image” that you have of them in your mind. (This is a pretty deep thing, but it points to worry on their part that your love for them is based on what they do rather than on your relationship with them.)

If some of these are happening, you need to consider whether you are making an idol of your child in your heart.

Step 2: Consider the End of This Path

Sometimes, this sort of investment and idolatry ends in “success” according to our culture, but these “successes” often prove how awful this idolatry is. We see “success” in the lives of child stars, athletes, and teen pop idols. Many times there are parents (over-invested parents) whose relationships with their children explodes in tragic ways. Even if it does not explode, the relationship gets creepy as the parents peddle the child as if he or she were a commodity.

If you want a great relationship with your child, commit to seeing them as a person that you can help to shape, but who will eventually make their own decisions and choices. If instead you want to have control, know that you are apt to see your relationship with your child destroyed in the long run. They cannot bear the weight of being an idol and your relationship is not really meeting the deepest need that they have—a need to be loved as a person unconditionally. On the flip side, I have seen parents who have really idolized and tried to control their child’s life who end up being sorely disappointed in the child even when the child lets the parent have control over the long run. In the end, even the worshipper of an idol wants more than the idol can deliver.

If you struggle in this area, and are worried that your child will make mistakes and be better off with you controlling their lives, remember what the end of the story looks like and flee that path!

Step 3: Find a New Path

Here are some practical ways to find a new path forward away from idolatry and toward health:

• Talk with your child about the struggles that you had at their age. Sometimes I find that my own children think that I made only good and right decisions, believing that my ethics and my experience were identical. They are shocked that I blew it sometimes and that we, their parents, made dumb decisions and still turned out okay.

• Ask open-ended questions about their future and don’t supply the answer. Let them simmer. Some children will have very clear ideas about what they want to do; others might need your help and counsel. Remember, your advice needs to be just that - advice - not demands that fail to take your child’s nature and giftings into account.

• Make a point of following through on loving your child unconditionally when they really blow it. If you blew it, how would you want God to treat you? Treat your children with the same grace and mercy that you receive from God. This does not mean that you need to avoid discipline, but that the discipline must take place within the broader context of love and contentment.

Remember, idolatry is a dead end street. It destroys both the worshipper and the idol (if the idol is a person). It does so because our hearts long for a right relationship with God and with others and as Augustine said, “Our hearts will be restless, until we find our rest in Him.”

Stay tuned for Part 5 of our series tomorrow, which we will look at another common parental sabotage: playing favorites.