"Parenting Is Your Highest Calling" and 8 Other Myths that trap us in Worry and Guilt..

Last night I stayed up and finished the second book that Leslie sent, "Parenting is Your Highest Calling And 8 other Myths that Trap Us in Guilt and Worry." Similar in format to her previous book Surprise Child, it is broken into comfortable length chapters with discussion/reflection questions in between. As a mentor/friend/co wanderer in the maze of parenting I find that many moms are struggling with the big questions about this 24/7 job and how to do it well. Regularly I have younger moms (I still cant believe I am now moving into that 'older mom' category) coming and begging for the answers to why parenting is so hard and not meeting any of the needs they dreamed it would. I have sympathy for their struggles and spend hours listening and helping them see that parenting is about more than how they 'feel.'

This book, "Parenting is your highest ....." is a great resource. In the study questions I found many of the same concepts I explore with these grieving moms. Those simple struggles over thinking our children should make us happy, why we feel their successes and failures reflect on our effectiveness as parents and how to face the reality that sometimes we don't love our kids as much as we thought we would.

This book is another keeper. I think my copy will be well passed around in our homeschool group as well as social circle, and it was well worth my investment to read. Here is a sneak peek at the 9 myths it addresses............happy reading!

1. Parenting is your highest calling.
(How pursuing God first leaves us free to love our children more)
2. Having children makes you happy and fulfilled.
(Discovering Gods real purpose in giving us children.)
3. Nurturing children is natural and instinctive.
(Discovering God's real purpose in giving us children.)
4. Good parenting leads to happy children.
(Exchanging shallow hopes for for God's deeper purposes.)
5. If you find parenting difficult, you must not be following the right plan.
(Learning to rely on God rather than formulas.)
6. You represent Jesus to your children.
(How we trap ourselves into a role we were not meant to play)
7. You will always feel unconditional love for your children.
(How our false ideas of love burden us with guilt.)
8. Successful parents raise godly children.
(The danger of making too much of ourselves and too little of God.)
9.God approves of only one family design.
(Why is God not limited by imperfect families?)