Mother’s Day

It’s a great thing to find someone who agrees with your position. The older I get the less often I find agreement out there in the world. For years I have had a somewhat contrary view about Mother’s Day. Don’t get me wrong. I love mothers. The mothers in my family have (and are) great mothers. But they are not saints. The fathers in my family have been great too. There are just too few of them. But they aren’t saints either. If you spend much time in church on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. You could conclude that all mothers are saints and all fathers deserve a public whipping.

The support I found was in an article “Pastors, Don’t Use Mother’s Day to Bash Dads.” There is a general consensus that the quality of fatherhood is down. I don’t think that’s true. The problem is that there are too few kids being raised by a mom and a dad. They need both. If anything the quality of motherhood is slipping. Face it ladies. Are you as good a mom as your mom or grandmother was? Today moms are under great pressure. They are under pressure to work. Too many are doing the job alone. The same society that thinks Dads aren’t doing very well, doesn’t give much credit to being a mom. Moms have acquired new roles lately. My mom wasn’t a social director for her nine kids. It wasn’t her job to see that we were all in an extracurricular activity each day. She wasn’t a soccer mom. She was concerned with our physical and spiritual growth and that’s enough of a task. She didn’t have to fight the influences coming through tv. (No we didn’t have a tv when I was young) But she also didn’t have to combat what sneaks through on cell phones.

But the biggest problem of all isn’t moms or dads or even the pressures of modern life. It’s that too many kids are being raised in homes where Jesus isn’t the head. There is no way to provide guidance to a child if your life is unguided. You can’t keep a child from becoming lost if you’re lost yourself. I’ve seen some single parents do great jobs, if they have Jesus.

When historians look back at the great societal decline that we are all suffering through they will find many “reasons” for the problem. They will match it to the increase in single family homes, the jump in working moms, the bad influence of the media, the decrease in church attendance. But those aren’t root causes. They are secondary. The real problem is the drift from Christ.

So pastors, and all the rest of you. Don’t use Mother’s Day to bash dads. Use it to encourage moms to walk closer with Jesus. Child raising is more than tough; like all of life it’s impossible without Christ.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Nick