Motherhood was something I planned for, something I wanted, so why was living it out so drastically different from my expectations?” This is a question many an honest and searching mother has asked herself. If motherhood is so good, so desirable, so obviously the will of God, then why does it have to be so difficult? Why does it feel so unfulfilling? This was Sarah Mae’s question as she faced another day of caring for her children after yet another sleepless night—one of those days where she was just too tired and too worn out to be a mom. “Down to the bone, to the deepest part of my soul, is the love I have for my children. Every day of my life is imperfectly offered to them. But the little years, they're hard and oftentimes lonely. It's like a secret we fear sharing, just how life-altering motherhood is, especially when you don't have training or support.”

Mae found both training and support through Sally Clarkson, an author who would also become a dear friend and much-needed mentor. Together they have written Desperate: Hope for the Mom Who Needs to Breathe, a book that, judging by its early reviews, has resonated with mothers.

Sally and I want to encourage you to keep going even when it feels like you can't, and we want to help you. We won't offer you formulas, but we will offer ideas, perspectives, transparency, and wisdom. We have some ideas for you in getting help, and we are making a plea for older women to remember the tired years and come alongside young mothers, so that our children and our children's children will know how to serve and to receive help.

Mae and Clarkson collaborate in a very natural way. Mae, whose oldest child is just six years old, describes motherhood as she goes through it. She identifies concerns, confesses exasperation, asks question. Clarkson responds as the mentor, the one whose children are older and grown, the one who comes alongside those who are in the trenches.

I have no first-hand experience of motherhood, but what I can testify is that the questions Mae poses are the very ones that Aileen and I have discussed so many times. Almost every area of frustration is here: the never-ending piles of laundry, the house that begins to fall apart before the cleaning is even complete, the children who won’t sleep, the children who don’t want to obey. But it goes deeper than that. Here too is the self-reliance and unrealistic expectation. “A good mom, in my mind, was up bright and early before her children woke up; she got dressed, did her hair, put on her makeup, had her quiet time, and had breakfast simmering in the pan as she went to wake up her babes. Of course in my fantasy she was always cheery, always smelled good, and never raised her voice. She was what God never asked us to be apart from Him: perfect.”

The authors’ solutions to such questions and frustrations uniformly lead back to Scripture.

Each of us has a story, but God, who originated the design of motherhood, is the expert advisor to whom we should turn. God has equipped us for every good work, and I am quite confident that He who designed this role to be so eternally significant is the one who is ready to help, support, instruct, and guide. He will provide all we need for the task He has given us to fulfill. But to hear from God we must become women of the Word and women who pray, so that His voice may lead us as we grow into this role with grace. I look back now through all of the huge obstacles, unexpected twists, and challenges on this course of motherhood through my life and see that at each point, He was there, helping, carrying, guarding, and blessing as a true and present advocate. He is the reason for any success or blessing I have felt as a mother.

As the authors share wisdom, they also share hope.

What if I told you that there is a parenting technique you can follow that will give you "a renewed vision for your family--no more raised voices, no contention, no bad attitudes, fewer spankings, a cheerful atmosphere in the home, and total obedience from your children?" And what if I told you that this technique "always works with every child?" And what if I added that this technique comes with God's own seal of approval because it is "the same technique God uses to train His children?" Such are the claims of Michael Pearl in To Train Up a Child, a book that is well on its way to selling its one millionth copy.

Let me tell you why I am reviewing this book. After I recently wrote a two-part review of Debi Pearl's Created To Be His Help Meet I received repeated requests to take a look at To Train Up A Child, written by her husband Michael. The people who wrote to me told me of the impact the book has had on their lives and on their churches. They also told me how many copies it had sold and how many are in the hands of people who read this web site. In light of all of this, I determined that it would be wise for me to have some knowledge of it.

As I read the book, I found it a fascinating illustration of the reality that what we believe will necessarily impact what we do and how we do it. In this case, it shows that what we believe to be true about children will inevitably shape the way we “train them up.” It concerned me to see that many people follow Michael Pearl’s technique even though they believe very different things from what he believes. It is for these people in particular that I write my review. I write it not to condemn you, but to provoke you to consider what Pearl really believes about children and how this has shaped his book and your children.

There are several key claims and teachings of this book that merit a closer look. I will move through them in what I hope is a logical and helpful way. Today I will do some background work and tomorrow I will try to bring it all to a helpful conclusion.

Training Versus Discipline

Critical to the book is a distinction between training and discipline. The book's title and purpose are derived from the well-known words of Proverbs 22:6: "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Pearl explains the importance and context of this word train: "Train up--not beat up. Train up--not discipline up. Train up--not educate up. Train up--not 'positive affirmation' up." Training is the most often missed element in child rearing. A child needs more than 'obedience training,' but without first training him, discipline is insufficient.”

This is not a book about the reactive discipline of disobedient children, though this is present as a related, secondary theme. Rather, it is a book about a kind of proactive training that heads off disobedience and thus negates the need for discipline. Pearl says, "Training is not discipline. Discipline is the 'damage control' part of training, but is insufficient in itself to effect proper behavior."

Byron Yawn has the ignominious distinction of being the first person to ever invite me to be a keynote speaker at a conference. That was a long time ago, and it seems like an even longer time, but he and I have stayed in touch since then and I was excited to hear of his work on a book titled What Every Man Wishes His Father Had Told Him. I had anticipated that I would be reading a book on fatherhood, but was pleasantly surprised to learn that it is actually far more than that.

It seems notable that I am writing this review on the occasion of my son’s twelfth birthday. It is probable that he is already more than half way to striking out on his own, to marrying, to beginning a family. I've already used up half of my opportunities to teach him what a father ought to teach his son. This is the kind of thought that can very nearly move me to tears; rarely do I feel less up to the task and more dependent on grace than in fatherhood. In that regard this book was both a challenge and a comfort.

What Every Man Wishes His Father Had Told Him is a book of essays more than it is a book that flows easily and logically from the first chapter to the last; the topics are much like the lessons a father will teach his son in that they meander a little bit, wandering from being a son to being a father and a man and a husband. They extend from biblical manhood to sincerity to pornography to having “the talk” with your son, to integrity. Each one is punctuated by wisdom that is sometimes biblical and sometimes, well, just plain practical (At least to my recollection the Bible doesn't comment on why you don't want to cut into a steak to see if it's ready to eat). These are not lessons for me to teach my son; not first and foremost. These are first lessons I need to learn and apply to my own life. There is a proper order to these things.

It is unlikely that I am the only father who is more than a little bit intimidated at the thought of raising daughters. Terrified and overwhelmed is more like it. If I didn't have strong, Christian role models to emulate (my own parents among them), I might just despair. One of the early lessons I have learned (I'm still relatively new to this--my girls are just 9 and 5) is the value of daddy dates, which is to say, taking out my daughters and spending time alone with them.

Greg Wright is a motivational speaker and executive coach whose challenge is twice as tough as mine; he has 4 daughters. Wright is the author of a new book titled Daddy Dates: Four Daughters, One Clueless Dad, and His Quest to Win Their Hearts. The book showed up in my mailbox the other day and I just had to read it. This wasn't a tough thing to do since a) it's only 210 pages long, b) those 210 pages are quite small with a lot of them being blank, c) the book is meant to be easy-to-read and d) I know that I need help in this very subject.

What this book is not is yet another parenting book on how to lead your children from the cradle to the wedding day. The focus is narrower than that. Wright seeks to help fathers pursue the hearts of their daughters. He does this primarily by pointing to his own example; the book is a memoir of sorts in which he shares lessons--the good and bad--from 18 years of raising girls.

There was a time when homeschooling was a very lonely place to be. Perhaps in some contexts it still is. In today's Christian circles though, at least the circles I've been exposed to locally and across the continent, it seems that homeschooling has entered the mainstream and for many families is now the default option. Speaking from experience, as the father of 3 children who all attend local public schools, I can attest that public schooling can be a very lonely place as well. Not only that, but there is little guidance for those of us who have chosen to educate our children in this way.

I recently came across a book titled Going Public, written by David and Kelli Pritchard, who together have raised 8 children, all of whom attended public schools. This is not a book that is anti-homeschool or anti-Christian school. The purpose is not to convince you that you ought to place your children in the local public school. Instead it seeks first, to show that your children can thrive at public school and second, to provide a parent’s field guide for helping them do just that. In this way it fills an important niche.

What the Pritchards do is simple: they allow us into their home and family, telling us why they made the decision to public school and then showing us how they have gone about it. It's not like they public school out of ignorance. To the contrary, they do what they do out of conviction that this is the way they can best raise their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. That word "fear" is important to them. Following Proverbs, they say that the fear of the Lord "is the foundation on which all learning, all knowledge-gathering, all schooling should be built." To do that, they focus on instructing their children from their earliest days in loving the Lord with all of their heart, soul, mind and strength; on learning unconditional obedience to their parents; and on attaining self-control. With these values being instilled in their children, they are ready to guide them through their education. 

I have just one memory that involves Ted Kluck. A year ago, maybe a little bit less, he and I were together in Chicago at a small gathering of young(ish) Christian authors. Ten or fifteen of us were gathered there, sitting around a group of tables in a hotel conference room. We had the opportunity to spend an evening with D.A. Carson, the D.A. Carson, to ask him any question we wanted. It’s no small thing to have open access, even for an hour or two, to one of the world’s greatest theologians. The questions were flying fast and furious. Unfortunately for Ted and for me, we were the only two there who weren’t involved in some level of graduate degree in theology. I was rooming with a guy who, if I have it right, is significantly younger than me but the owner of two PhD’s. Meanwhile, I have a three-year degree in history and Ted, well, he’s a former football player who undoubtedly took a few knocks on the head along the way. Ted and I sat opposite one another at this table, both feeling like the dumb guys. We didn’t understand the questions and we sure as shootin’ didn’t understand the answers. Later we commiserated, celebrating being the dumb guys. It’s a good memory.

But really, that memory has very little to do with this book review, a review of a book dealing with adoption.

Adoption is all the rage today. Is that an obnoxious thing to say? I simply mean that lots of Christians, and Reformed Christians in particular, are talking about adoption and, even better, getting involved in adoption. In recent years we’ve seen the birth of a great organization and conference dedicated to it and we’ve seen the release of a couple of excellent books on the topic. Best of all, we’ve seen more and more people actually adopt children, welcoming them to their homes, to their churches. Like many of you, I’m excited for this trend and hope it continues.

A few days ago I received in the mail a copy of Amazing Dad by Stephanie Byrd. This is a self-published book and by far the exception among the self-published books I receive—it is really and truly good. Byrd has combed through the letters of the great statesman William Wilberforce, the letters to his children, and has found there the principles that dominated and set the course for his life. These letters are sweetly pastoral as a father encourages, exhorts and teaches his children. Here is just one example, an excerpt of a letter in which Wilberforce is encouraging his son through a time of depression.

I am concerned to learn from a confidential letter which has just reached us that you are at present in a nervous, uncomfortable state of spirits. Now my dear, my very dear boy, my advice to you in these circumstances both as a father and a friend is best conveyed in the letter of a Heavenly Father who with unutterable condescension and love has assured us that He loves us better than we are beloved by our own earthly father, in proportion to the superior benevolence of His nature; ask and ye shall receive, ask whatever you need, pardon of sin, wisdom, strength, peace, love, heavenly mindedness. Whatever you desire or need. You may say that these promises are addressed to God’s children. But remember, He receives all as His children who come to Him with penitent hearts, imploring His pardoning mercies and His sanctifying grace. I do not wonder that you are afraid of taking to yourself these gracious declarations — you only thereby show that your feelings correspond with those of the Christians as described by St. Paul, who in obedience to his precept are working out their salvation with fear and trembling. What follows in that passage shows the apostle did not mean, however, that this fear was to be of a desponding, still less of a despairing character. They were to bear in mind that God worked in them out of His divine beneficence. Be of good courage, my dear boy, you are assured by our blessed Savior, Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out. You wrong Him, however, by allowing a doubt of His gracious dispositions towards you to harbor in your mind. So cast yourself on the mercy of God through the atoning blood and prevailing intercession of your Savior and asking also wisdom to guide and strength to support you. … I am much better pleased than if you were careless about your soul.

The book alternates between such letters and Byrd’s biographical explanations. It makes the book a very interesting look at Wilberforce both through the words of a biographer and through his very own words, sent to his most intimate correspondents. There are letters themed around Education and Career, Christian Friendship, Financial Matters, Benevolence, Family Blessings, Spiritual Growth and, of course, Real Christianity.

Amazing Dad is a good book and one I commend to you. Actually, I commend it as well to publishers—this is a good book and one worthy of wider distribution.

I love the book of Proverbs and often feel bewilderment when I think of how few Christians, and Christian parents in particular, rely on the wisdom it contains—knowledge that is at once deep and wide. Proverbs is, in so many ways, a manual for raising wise, discerning, godly children. Why then don’t we turn to it more often?

According to George Barna, there have been approximately 75,000 books on parenting published in the past decade. I sometimes feel like I have read all of them. It strikes me, though, that publishers must feel the same way and that, hopefully, they think hard before releasing yet another book into such a crowded marketplace. I at least wanted to give the benefit of the doubt to P&R with the release of William Farley’s Gospel-Powered Parenting. And I’m very glad that I did.

I have spent the last thirteen years of my life trying to forget my teenage years. It’s not that these years were really so bad and it’s not like I went through a period of utter rebellion as do so many teens (for which I give thanks to God). It’s more that I had little joy in these years and felt that I was mostly just putting in time as I waited to grow up. What I do remember is many times of disobedience and disregard for my parents. I loved them and hated them. I needed them and yet wanted to go about life on my own. Though I may not have told them so in so many words, many times I just wanted them out of my face. I remember those years well—more so than I would like.