The Parenting Book

Nicky & Sila Lee, authors of The Marriage Book, have now written a book on parenting with illustrations by artist Charlie Mackesy. Here is a selection of extracts...

We turn up for this job unprepared. There are no degrees or diplomas in parenting. Most of us have had no training at all. The pay? Child benefit paid by the government to every parent in the UK is around £20 a week.

But when we bring our newborn baby home from hospital, for many of us, the realisation dawns: this is the most important job in the world and we have not got a clue what we are doing.

Children bring an awesome responsibility. We are entrusted with the task of shaping the lives of real people, with all their potential to do good or harm.

At times, it is highly inconvenient. They disturb our sleep; they interfere with our plans; they stir up dormant and unresolved passions. And yet, as we seek to teach them, they are teaching us. They teach us what sacrifice is all about.

The total dependence of a baby upon us, their powerlessness to reciprocate what we do for them, their inability to say thank you, all lead us to become less selfish.

We are forced to change, to grow up, to look at the needs of another, to raise our boredom threshold, to develop patience, to deal with our insecurities, to become more whole. We are learning to love.

Parenting is a higher calling than the pursuit of our own happiness. It carries a big cost – tiredness, worry, and for some, the terrible pain of losing a child.

But it can also bring the highest of rewards: the depth of love a parent feels and the privilege of knowing that we have helped shape a life.

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We watched a nature programme recently which featured bear cubs growing up. When they were not sleeping or eating, they were generally fighting. But it was the playful kind – provoking each other, chasing, wrestling, and biting an ear – and curiously it reminded us of our own children.

Siblings build relationships with each other through playing, fighting, squabbling, sharing toys and adventures, settling arguments, teasing, and learning to take care of each other.

Brothers and sisters are not the only source of lessons in socialising, but they are a great help.

Of course dealing with sibling clashes is one of the most common and challenging of all parenting tasks.

Most brothers and sisters do not always get on with each other and learning to live together will include plenty of bickering and fights. The lessons may stretch the whole family, but it is good for their characters!

Our children must learn to get on because, while they can choose their friends, they cannot choose their brothers and sisters.

Siblings, who have learnt to appreciate each other as children, will often be a source of great strength and friendship to each other as adults.

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The three words, ‘I love you,’ have great power. John, now in his twenties, said, ‘I cannot remember ever hearing my parents say that, or any other affectionate words to me throughout my childhood. It left me feeling very alone and insecure.’ He is still waiting to hear those three words.

Parents need to speak frequently of their love from the earliest months of their children’s lives all the way through the teenage years. The words, ‘I love you’, might be part of the bedtime ritual when they are younger or the last words spoken to older children before they leave for school. They might be sent by text or written in a letter for a child to keep and read over again.

Teenagers long to hear their parents speak these three words to them more than their parents usually realise. As they pass through adolescence they are besieged by questions about their identity and value. They are undermined by their own unfavourable comparisons with their friends and siblings. But hearing they are loved can help provide the security and self-worth they need to carry them through.

Phrases like, ‘I love being with you,’ ‘I love playing with you,’ ‘I really enjoy talking to you,’ ‘I like watching you draw/seeing you play hockey/watching the way you play with your little brother,’ ‘You’re wonderful,’ ‘You’re so funny,’ ‘You’re great fun,’ should become part of our regular vocabulary to express our affection.

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Sila: When one of our sons was eleven, he sometimes found it difficult to go to sleep at night, and the more he tried, the more he wound himself up. One evening I was sitting on the edge of his bed commiserating with him about it while also thinking of all the things I needed to do downstairs, when he said, ‘Draw a picture on my back, Mum, and see if I can guess what it is.’ I drew the shape of a sailing boat, which he guessed after two or three attempts. ‘Do another,’ he said. Next I drew a person holding an umbrella. And so started a ritual between us on those nights when he couldn’t sleep. It was one-to-one time for fifteen minutes or so with our son that I could no more have planned than fly to the moon – but it was a window of opportunity that lasted almost a year, and I could so easily have missed it through allowing the pressure of other things to pull me away.

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Recently we were staying with a family who have a daughter aged thirteen and three sons aged eleven, nine and seven. The two older boys had two friends over for the day. They made their plans for the evening.

They wanted to have supper and then all pile into the sitting room with duvets and pillows to watch a film. There was much debate amongst the children as to which film they would watch. The boys were pushing for a Certificate 12, which was not suitable for the seven-year-old.

The film the parents were suggesting was seen as boring by the older ones. The option of telling the seven-year-old he could not watch anything and had to go to bed would have started World War III.

Equally inflammatory would have been suggesting to the older ones they had to watch something suitable for the seven-year-old.

As we watched these normally confident and capable parents struggling with the barrage of irreconcilable requests, we sympathised hugely. We were so glad we were not having to make the decision! After much discussion a compromise was agreed. Everybody would start by watching the film appropriate for the seven-year-old. Then at his bed time it would be changed for the one that the others wanted to watch. The seven-year-old was told he could watch the remainder of his film the next day. Peace was restored and they all settled down together.

We have faced many similar situations ourselves. Sometimes we stood firm and bore the fury. At other times, we found ourselves re-evaluating our decision.

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Story time was another popular tradition in our family. It was an opportunity to be close to our children. Our habit was to read stories on our bed, which was a Japanese futon on the floor, so there was no danger of the younger ones falling off and getting hurt. We would snuggle up with pillows and duvets. If we were busy later in the evening, bath time was shorter or we read less. But we decided it was important to try to stick to the routine of a story each night.

On those evenings when chaos reigned, when no one wanted to settle down and there was endless pushing, fighting and crying, we discovered that treating story time as a privilege gave us powerful leverage.

The threat of, ‘There will be no story if you don’t quiet down and stop messing about’, meant they risked missing out on something they really enjoyed. We had to be careful not to use this threat too often and to be prepared to carry it through when necessary.

Another story-telling tradition when the children were smaller took place on our summer holiday. The weather was sometimes cool enough in the evenings to warrant a fire. With the children in their pyjamas, we would sit round it and they would plead for another chapter in order to stay up longer. This family time created powerful memories for them and often led to fascinating discussions all together.

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Nicky: I was reading a bedtime story from a children’s Bible to Kirsty when she was six years old. She suddenly asked me, ‘Daddy, what will heaven be like?’

Wanting to give her a proper sense of excitement, I tried to describe how wonderful it will be. I told her that there will be more and more good things to discover, that she will meet Jesus face to face, that he will probably give her a great big hug and they will talk about all the different parts of her life here on earth. As I talked, Kirsty’s eyes grew wider and wider. When I had finished she exclaimed, ‘Oh Daddy, I can’t wait to die!’

I wasn’t sure that this was healthy in a six-year-old and wondered if I had gone somewhat over the top. While I was still considering how to correct any imbalance, she added, ‘I know! It’s really good to be alive and then even better when you die.’

I doubt whether she remembers the incident, but I have never forgotten her words. That is the Christian perspective we hope that all our children will have throughout their lives.

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Recently we attended the funeral service of a friend, called Ify, who died of cancer at the age of forty, leaving her husband, Agu, and their two children, JJ, aged twelve, and Nonye, aged ten.

Agu spoke at the service of their close family life, ‘We have laughed a lot together. We laughed with each other and at each other. We laughed at other people and with other people. There has always been a lot of laughter in our home.’
At the same service a recorded message by each of the children was played. This is what Nonye said:

Dear Mum,
You were a great mother, the best I could wish for. For the eleven years and five months I have known you (including the time in your tummy), you have always been there for me and cared for me; even when I was bad and did something really wrong you never stopped loving me and that I am grateful for. When I cried you picked me up and made me keep going.

You helped me with my homework when I didn’t understand and gave me advice for all my problems in school. You taught me to look at problems from both perspectives, and to always stick to my Christian morals. You gave me great logical thinking skills which have come in handy a lot of times.

I remember our intense conversations or when I used to climb into your bed and ask, ‘How was your day?’ and you would ask me in return.

You always had something interesting to tell or a lesson to learn and made a boring day sound really exciting. We used to cuddle up close and just talk about anything and everything as random and abstract as it may have been. I never had trouble talking to you because you always understood and never judged me.

Now I have to come to a close, but mum, you were the best mum I could ever have. I love you and hope to see you again, not too soon though!

Enjoy your time with God.
Nonye XXX

The Parenting Book is published by Alpha International at price £7.99