"Loving Your Adult Children" (Gaye B. Clark)

TITLE: Loving Your Adult Children: The Heartache of Parenting and the Hope of the Gospel
AUTHOR: Gaye B. Clark
PUBLISHER: Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2024, (176 pages).

Parenting is a life-long endeavour. Even though the means change over time, the nature of parental love will remain. When the children are dependants, parents take responsibility for them. Once they become adults, the way parents care for them will also have to change. As a parent myself, I often tell my friends that parenting is like flying a kite. When they are young, we hang on tightly when dangerous winds try to blow them off-course. As they grow older, we loosen our grip so that they can learn how to make their own decisions. Eventually, we need to let go of the kite completely as they embark upon the journey of adulthood. As the children become adults, the way parents love them will have to change accordingly. For author Gaye Clark, the primary goal of Christian parenting is to teach children to place their hopes in life on God alone through Jesus's finished work. When the children are young, parents pay and pray for their daily needs. When they become adults and become independent, parents can continue to love them by praying for them. Besides that, Clark shows us even more ways to love them. Putting first things first, if we want our children to have faith in God alone, we need to practice what we are going to preach. The way to love our children is essentially to lead by example. We do this through the practice of faith, repentance, grace, hope, Church, patience, Goodness, Kindness, Gentleness, Self-Control, Peace, and Love.

Many of these attributes remind us of the fruit of the Spirit passage in Galatians. We lead by example of faith in God alone. Many of us have to navigate the temptations of different idols in life. This makes inculcating faith in God alone particularly challenging. One litmus test of faith is for parents to check if they are idolizing their own children. Clark calls idolatry as a form of "misplaced love," something that all parents need to be wary of. We lead by example through humble confession and honest repentance. We can learn to distinguish between "godly sorrow" and "worldly sorrow." By connecting repentance to God's forgiveness, we can learn to live with with giving and receiving forgiveness in this world. Another way to leading by example is living grace. Learn about empowering grace instead of exasperating grace. The way to love our adult children is to grow a bigger heart toward living grace. This can only be done when we model our attitude according to God's grace. An important aspect of loving our adult children is to give hope. As our children enter into the adult world, they will encounter all sorts of challenges that can taint their sense of hope. No matter how dark our days of pain and suffering may be, hope is that light that gives us a fighting chance. Using the story of Naomi and Ruth, we learn how hope leads to human reconciliation. Even severed relationships can be salvaged. One of the most powerful ways to help our children is the essence of what Church means. It matters when you have a community who has your back, like how the author was grateful about her Church member watching over her children in her absence. How does Church care translate into adult life? Learn to see the relevance of Church life in spite of cultural disdain about Church. Granted that the Church has flaws, one needs to see how redemption starts with Church life. This is perhaps one of the biggest struggles among adult children especially with the growth of the religious NONES. This trend of believers who choose to be non-aligned and non-affiliated to any forms of Church is a sad development that needs to be addressed. While many point to the flaws of Church, we need to balance such negativity with a reality check that Church does have positive values too. Perhaps, we can plant the seeds of a healthy Church community by starting with a small one. Then there is patience. Clark highlights two types: Patience with circumstances and patience with people. The latter is obviously the more difficult of the two.  Some reasons why we grow impatient are: Lack of Prayer; Romanticizing the past; exaggeration; lying; self-pity; etc. Decrease these habits and we are on the way to a more patient lifestyle. Of Goodness and Kindness; Gentleness and Self-Control; Faithfulness and Joy; Peace and Love; are all attributes that nourish a healthy and loving relationship with adult children.

My Thoughts
Here are three thoughts about this book. Firstly, it is a much needed addition to the genre of Christian parenting. There are many books written about parenting young children. Not many about adult children. Perhaps some think once children become adults, they are independent from their parents. While legally that is true, in many other ways, especially spiritually and emotionally, a parent will always be a parent. The means may differ but the love remains the same. How parents express that love will change but the nature of loving them will never change. This book gives us many different ways to cultivate that loving relationship. It begins powerfully with a call to parent our children from the anchor of seeing God as our parent first. Clark reminds us rightfully that having the best material things, careers, and world achievements are nothing without the right heart. One might argue that this book is not just for Christians, but for all concerned parents. On the one hand, I tend to agree because the crux of this book is based on Christian principles. On the other hand, parenting is a very human thing. How we care for our kids when young and parent them when old is a common challenge throughout all of humanity.

Secondly, it takes one to mould one. If parents themselves are not leading and living by example, the impact on the adult children will be minimal, if any. The old saying of not being a sage by the stage but being a guide by the side is appropriate here. It is less about what we say but more about what they can see. That said, this book should speak and challenge all parents regardless of their children's age. If possible, start when they are young. If not, start immediately. Lest they accuse their parents of hypocrisy. The best way to go about practising the principles in this book is to apply it to oneself. Thus, the questions posed at the end of each chapter should be an essential worksheet for parents. For instance, how can one encourage another to pray when one does not himself or himself pray? How can one expect faith when one does not exercise faith in the first place?

Finally, there is no guarantee that our children will turn out the way we wanted them to. Like the parable of the prodigal son, the only thing the parent can do is to pray for the wayward child to repent, return, and be restored. Many parents will naturally have high hopes for our children. We can do the best we can but the rest we can only leave it to God. That's the key difference between bringing up young children and caring for our adult children. Parents likewise will need to grow up in their parenting methods. Most importantly, they should be ready to adapt their expectations accordingly. Every child is different. Every adult child is also different. If we do not like young children to talk back at us, we should be prepared that the day will come where we do not like our adult children to bark at us. Each of these virtues will need to come into play at different phases of our lives. Whatever it is, being equipped now is a good preparation for anything that might occur in the future.

May all who come before us find us faithful.

Gaye B. Clark is a registered nurse and has worked with young adults for more than twenty years. Gaye is a widow and mother of two adult children, Anna Wiggins and Nathan Clark, and grandmother of three.

Rating: 4 stars out of 5.

conrade

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This book has been provided courtesy of Crossway Publishers via NetGalley without requiring a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.