Bless This Mess summary

While reformulating our parenting methods might seem like a daunting task, there are a lot of places we can look to for guidance. One of them is a psychological school of thought known as self-determination theory.  

According to this theory, everybody is born with an inner reserve of motivation – a fact that in-the-know parents can harness for the good of their children. 

Jesus took nuanced moral stances in a time of clear-cut absolutes and stood up on behalf of social outcasts. To enable our children to do the same, the first step we can take is to introduce them to the concept of moral ambiguity. This is a form of ethical thinking that deals in moral gray areas, rather than in black-and-white notions of good and evil.

The problem is that children are familiar with the notion of good guys and bad guys from an early age – it’s a trope they encounter in nearly every form of storytelling. This makes it even more important that we help them to realize that goodies and baddies are exactly that: just a story, a fable.

Our children are ours, but they’re also their own. In other words, they aren’t carbon copies of us, and they can’t – and won’t – follow our advice for every situation.

So how do we ensure that they adopt the values we cherish? Well, the first step is simple: define those values, and make them known.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus explicitly warned us that money and material possessions are unimportant and can even hinder our spiritual growth. In fact, he advised his disciples to give away everything they owned.

In today’s world, how can we can begin to live a life more aligned with this teaching? 

Although we might be inclined to think of social justice as an entirely modern concern, the pursuit of kindness, fairness, and equality has a much longer history. In fact, Jesus repeatedly calls on us in the Bible to try to fix society’s ills.

To heed this call, our children must develop a sense of concern for the people around us – especially those in need. Unfortunately, many parents assume that their children will simply adopt a caring attitude as they mature. But if you don’t show your children that it’s important to be kind, they’re probably not going to magically start thinking that it is. 

For too long, parents have delivered advice on drugs, alcohol, and especially sex in the form of the dreaded “Talk” – a one-off conversation in which everything kids need to know about these sensitive topics is supposedly revealed. More often than not, this Talk is stilted, ineffective, and rife with unhelpful moral absolutes. So what might a progressive, Christian alternative to the Talk look like instead?

For a start, the Talk would stop existing in the singular. Replacing it with a series of casual but meaningful discussions is a far more effective strategy if we want to help our children make safe, informed decisions.

For Christians, Sunday is meant to be a day of rest – but, sadly, this aspiration is becoming increasingly unrealistic in our fast-paced modern world.

With all the demands life makes on our time, attention, and energy these days, how can we hope to bring religion into our daily lives?

As parents, if we let ourselves worry about everything that troubles us, we might be in a constant state of panic. We want the best for our children, but we know there’s so much in the world that could harm them.

Luckily, prayer can sometimes act as an antidote to anxiety. One reason for this is that praying involves recognizing that some things are beyond our control – that no matter how much we worry, there will always be things we can’t change. When we pray to God about something that’s troubling us, then, we’re acknowledging the limits of our own power as well as the futility of worry. After all, if only God can fix whatever’s worrying us, what use is our own troubled brooding?