Why It's Hard to Read Parenting Books

The limitations of parenting books continually remind us of our limitations as parents and bring us to our knees in prayer.

I’ve been overwhelmed by how hard it is to read parenting books even though they are key to gaining wisdom in parenting. Here are some reflections on why they are hard to read.

1. They are too long when you are very short on time.

   

2. What helps you as a parent is highly specific to you and your children’s strengths, weaknesses, and personalities. I’ve heard some say 1-2-3 Magic was very helpful and others say the same book was awful and backfired with their kids.

   

3. You typically have a very specific problem that is hard to find addressed in the right book. How do I get my 4-year-old to stay in bed? How do I get my 14-year-old to talk? Often a five-minute conversation with a lady from church can be more helpful than five hours reading a parenting book.

4. Most Christian parenting books are really bad. Except for a few exceptions like Paul and Ted Tripp, these books tend to waste so much time assuming you have never thought about theology or the Bible and go over the most basic ideas. Then they give highly specific advice from their own anecdotes without good empirical data. I’m sure we have all been helped by some Christian parenting books, but looking back, I would say most of them are inferior to secular ones.

5. The secular ones have really faulty anthropology and often wrong views of authority even though they contain some of the best practical advice. Christians do believe humans are sinful from birth, certain “emotions” are sinful when acted upon, and God does give authority to parents to discipline.

   

6. There’s been quite a swing from more traditional authoritarian parenting (think Dare to Discipline) to modern grace-based or secular parenting books like Raising Good Humans or Give Them Grace that can be dizzying and hard to sort through. (Disclaimer: I haven’t read any of those, I just know of them and have heard the basic ideas)

7. It’s emotionally draining and makes you think of your past. While I had perfect parents (in case they’re reading this), everyone has difficult parts of their upbringing that are hard to sort through. Parenting books often make you have to deal with these aspects of yourself and are emotionally draining and difficult.

The Spiritual Reason Parenting Books Are Hard to Read

God doesn’t always give us straightforward answers so we have to seek him and wait on him. The spiritual reason it is hard to just get what we need in parenting is so that we will keep coming back to God for answers and not depend on a person.

Wisdom is like a riddle that you have to work hard at figuring out. Wisdom comes from all different places and people, not just Christians, and as the Book of Job points out, sometimes you get the worst ideas from Christians. We need to be very careful who we are listening to, even if they are Christian voices.

Notice that almost all of the direct parenting verses in Scripture are in Proverbs, which is a wisdom book. The most clear command besides the wisdom verses is in Ephesians, which is the command not to provoke your children to wrath. And then we get stories of parents and our example of God our Heavenly Father. Notice God didn’t give a straightforward parenting book and any Christian parenting book that pretends to give it all to you might be making the same error as Job’s friends. Wisdom is a riddle and does not come easily.

This book ended up in my Free Little Library and cracked me up

If parenting were easy, we could give up on our pursuit of wisdom. We want parenting tips to be simple and easy, but God’s primary goal for us is to depend on him and grow. So there is a spiritual reason it’s hard to read parenting books. They have many limitations and are hard to read so we keep going to God in prayer and not trust in any person or resource.