Keeping up with the Joneses has taken on a new meaning: our kids better be as good, or better than, our neighbors’. We have the urge to produce better kids. We might feel like we are are failing, because in the run for worldly approval, child Jones is successful, and our child is not.

A lot of us 40 year olds in the mothering world are commenting on the same thing: we don’t share our cute kids’ stories like we used to. It is true, as they say, that the escapades aren’t as adorable now that the children are older. We acknowledge that some incidents are inappropriate, embarrassing, or downright too difficult to share. Gone are the days when we post pictures of the baby making a mess with his spaghetti in his high-chair. Now we are more likely to catch that act of destruction in his bedroom, which we’ve TOLD him to clean a million times. And it isn’t fun to be exasperated by a teen. I’s not the same as chasing a two-year old in the park, mostly because that teen knows better than to evade you, and they better get their butt in line Right. Now.

So we’ve stopped sharing. We don’t post bragging momma pictures unless it’s something that everyone can approve: the honor roll or dean’s list, the winning medal, college acceptance or scholarship offer. And seeing those success postings from other moms can make us feel a bit, well, like we need to keep up. Keeping up with the Joneses has taken on a new meaning: our kids better be as good, or better than, our neighbors’. We have the urge to produce better kids. We might feel like we are are failing, because in the run for worldly approval, child Jones is successful, and our child is not. How hard it is to remember that verse in *Romans, that starts, “Do not be conformed to this world….”

Partly this is because we have a warped idea of success.  We are OK with being less well off financially. Indeed, many mothers I know gave up careers to pursue part-time work at home, so they could raise their children. We are not the “keeping up with the Joneses” kind of people; worldly success is not our aim.  Or is it?

Something happens to us as our toddlers turn into teens. We start to pin our success on our kids’ success. It happens slowly, insidiously. It starts when we have a toddler who we remove from the grocery store when she throws a tantrum and march her straight home to bed, then smugly watch as another mother wheedles and begs her three year old to “Please behave for Mommy, so she can get the shopping done.” We swell up with pride in our effective parenting skills because we don’t suffer tantrums or lose our temper (in public) and our children are clean, cheerful, and receive approving smiles from strangers. Our children grow into well-adjusted elementary schoolers who get good grades and like to watch Disney movies. This reflection of the child on us morphs over the years until, when they are 12 or 13, it has become a swollen pride that believes, “If my child performs poorly, I haven’t properly parented, and so I have performed poorly.”

Getting a toddler to behave is not the same as having a teenager choose to obey.  Somewhere along the way that toddler becomes an independent being.

All you have to do is look at the number of child sports performance camps, club leagues, honors classes, violin and music camps, academic learning centers, and you know it is true. I get that this is also because we want our kids to get into college (and with the cost of it now, they also need scholarships). I am guilty of it too; I am in the midst of two kids in college, both receiving a hefty amount in scholarships for academics or sports, thank God, or we couldn’t afford it.  I have two more college-bound children that go to ballet summer programs and Sports ID camps, so I understand. I am not pointing fingers here– I do this too.

The struggle is to separate our child from our identity. I guarantee that your child will fail, and when he does, if you are wrapped up in him as an extension of you, you cannot help him. You’ll be too busy beating yourself up and wondering how you failed so thoroughly. One saving grace I remember is God made me, (and I am a mess, much like my teenagers) and He is my heavenly father. If He, who is wonderful and perfect, can make ME, who has a definite history of screw-ups, then He does not expect me to get it perfect in raising my children. The extension of this is that He is also my children’s heavenly father (*Galatians 3:26), and He loves them even more than I do. I also know from experience that getting a toddler to behave is not the same as having a teenager choose to obey.  Somewhere along the way that toddler become an independent being.  As a mini-adult, we have to realize the child’s success or failure lies squarely on the child’s choices, knowing right or wrong as we taught them.

One of our college kids struggles with depression and anxiety. Because this runs in our family history, I had seen it and dealt with it in others before. But when she started to fall under it during her senior year of high school, I did everything I could to keep her afloat.  We eventually sought medical help, including counseling and medication, but even admitting we needed to take that step almost put ME into regressive therapy.  Think you feel like a failure because your kid committed plagiarism or cheated on a final? Yes; I was feeling like a complete failure for raising a Christian kid who was under medical care for a mental issue. (Understand, I am writing this in a grand overview. I am not trying to minimize or simplify it, just give you an idea that I AM STILL IN THIS WITH MY BOOTS ON.)

I don’t share all my kids’ things on facebook now. Of course, I have those mommy-brag moments, but I rarely include the weekly adorable thing my teen said (they don’t say those things anymore). So all of us with teens and young college kids are figuring out how to raise these imperfect creatures into young men and women of God, and no one is talking about what’s really going on in the house, and we are floundering.

Occasionally it seems we are doing it right. Some days our kid jumps into the car and says, “Hi! Thanks for picking me up!” Or, “A new girl started school today, and I helped her open her locker.” Or more rarely, “Mom, can I ask you something?” and then pours out her convoluted friendship triangle that has her in a funk and asks for your advice.  Those are the mommy-brag moments that are equivalent to the baby brags and pictures we used to post. But how do you relate that information to the world? And why would you want to? It’s too personal, too special to understand unless you are you and you know your kid.

If raising babies is hard (and it is) raising teens is just as hard. We are in the trenches of a silent war. It is part spiritual battle, part family drama and part denying worldly desire. To all my friends out there who have given me a piece of advice or shared an experience to help me, I say thanks.  Moms, keep asking for help from other moms. Moms, keep offering up those tidbits that have helped you. Keep your prayer life strong and your marriage foremost in your priorities. Remember, (as my friend Debee told me a few years ago) after the kids all leave, you will have only your husband to do things with.  Also remember, your kid is not you.

Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Galatians 3:26, “For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.” There are so many more verses that call us His children! Romans 8:16, 17, I John 3:1, Phil 2:15.