On being a modern parent, anxiety, and doing ALL the things – S3, E5

In this episode, Jami skirts around the controversial topic of parenting, particularly comparing older versus newer ways of doing it. Listen in!

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There’s a reel going around, the 80's parent versus Millennial parent, and I think we need to address a few things.

In the comments, OVER and OVER again it was moms saying “I wish I could be the 80s mom!”

And now, this isn’t really about being an 80s mom versus being a millennial mom. 80s moms did things wrong too. There’s good info we do have access to today, there are times to be aware of what our children are doing.

But, I think this viral reel hits at the core of what a lot of us moms struggle with today.

Access to too much information is not always a blessing.

You google literally anything today and it’s going to eventually tell you to head to the ER because you are dying.

I am so thankful for the internet today, I am so thankful for access to good and useful information, but without a high level of discernment, the level of information we have access to can turn from being a blessing into a curse.

Having SO many opinions and voices all screaming at us can crowd out our God-given discernment.

We need to be careful that we are not letting other people’s opinions take over and crowd out what God is calling us to. When that anxiety and that overwhelm hits, are we off to see what our favorite IG influencer has to say or what Dr. Google recommends before and above praying and asking God for discernment in the situation?

We can come to despise the older generations' advice, and this is a dangerous situation.

Older moms, older generations, are where we should be getting our motherhood advice from. And when we end up in an echo chamber of just our own generation, on the internet, in often harmful chat rooms, we are not learning from older and wiser generations.

NOW, this can be actually quite tricky right now. I am fully acknowledging that. We are a generation right now that is changing things. In many ways, we are the generation that is turning the tide back to how our great-grandmothers lived and raised their children and we are having to figure out what that looks like in our modern world. This is not easy and there is no clear way to do this. It takes a high degree of discernment which comes through prayer and wisdom.

Just because we have access to more answers than our grandmother’s day, doesn’t actually mean we know more.

Our children do not actually belong to us, they belong to the Lord. We need to trust that ultimately HE is the one in control, NOT us

Ladies, we have a very false sense of security and control in our modern world. Thank the Lord, we don’t see high mortality rates in our babies. We don’t have to give birth to 15 children to just have 4 of them survive to adulthood. We have access to clean water, good food, doctors, medicine, and more.

A lot of this can lead us to think WE are in control. Yes, God asks us to be wise and to be self-disciplined. We have to work very hard to care for our children and take care of our households.

But this all needs to be done with the clear idea in mind that God is sovereign over our every breath. That he is the one that knows the exact minutes we will be on this earth and he cares so deeply for our children, that we can trust Him. Even when we don’t understand the big picture, we can trust AND we can recognize that we are not in control anyway. And that having anxiety about every morsel of food our kids eat, is mistrusting the Lord and doesn’t lead to a better outcome ANYWAY or more peace in our homes.

In the next two episodes, we are going to be dealing with the topic of fear and anxiety.