"Thanks for your letter about parenting. It has just arrived and I'm newly home and I thought in view of the short time we have, I'd simply write down a few random thoughts. This may take a lot of editing. I'm not sure I am the right one for this Workshop, since I have many doubts about how effective I am as a parent. However there are some things I'm learning."
When we sent out inquiries asking for contributions to this Journal Workshop on parenting, we received the above letter from the father of two children in Great Britain.
Does his statement strike a chord? Have you ever had "doubts" about how effective you are as a parent, or as an aunt or uncle, or even as a citizen concerned about the children of your community? Maybe. But raising children in the nineties is no easy task. The challenges are enormous. The shaky economy places stress on families — with many parents worried about losing their jobs. Often both parents work — and maybe there's concern about children spending too much time on their own without parental guidance. Drugs present another challenge. Recently, too, there have been increasing reports about violence in the schools — children carrying weapons and sometimes using them against their fellow students.
A broad range of problems? Yes. Yet insurmountable? No. It is possible for parents to gain a sense of comfort and dominion in providing for the welfare their children. We talked with three Christian Scientists who have very different experiences to share about parenting. But the common thread that links all of them is a genuine reliance on prayer in meeting the demands of raising children. Their love of family and God has sustained them, elevating and broadening their concept of what it means to be a parent.
Not long ago we talked to a woman, a student of Christian Science, who has worked as an adult probation and parole officer. More recently she has been providing foster care for children who have been physically or sexually abused, who've run away from home, or have been put out of other foster homes. We began the interview by asking her to share some background on her life as a foster parent.
My husband teaches at juvenile detention facility, and my two daughters are in the seventh and third grade. We've been a foster family for over five years, and we've had close to two hundred children in our home. We mainly have teenage girls, four at a time. We have four beds downstairs. Most of the children are labeled sexually and/or physically abused or in conflict at home. Sometimes they've run away, been kicked out of other foster homes, or are in need of a safe, secure home. We do only temporary care, which could be a day or two or up to several months. And then we work with the state agency to ascertain whether the child can return home or go on to a longterm foster home — and be with a family, in other words. Or we decide if they're in need of a stricter environment such as a group home setting. Sometimes they leave us and go to several different places. One of the things that I'm asked quite a bit is, how do I let go of these kids? And I have to go back constantly to the idea that parenting actually belongs to God. Children don't come and go out of that parenting; it's constant. And there's always a next step that will promote good growth. The children provide us with an opportunity to cherish them and grow with them. I'm always grateful that we can witness some of those steps along the way. That's hopefully a true sense of fostering.
In dealing with foster children, especially with a disturbed child, how do you get past that to see what's really good in them? Well, there are two main themes that seem to recur in that area, and they are kind of stimulated from my own need, from my own growth and healing. One is removing the labels and excess baggage that the teenagers arrive with at our house. First of all, before we can relate effectively to the children, we have to deal with our concept of children. And children labeled sexually or physically abused, neglected, emotionally unattached, addicted, angry, or scarred for life are really perfectly complete and mature spiritual ideas of God, good. And we need to depersonalize the human labels and the history and seek out those Godlike qualities that we do see and cling to them.
One of the things not to be fearful of is labels. When we're clinging to the Godlike qualities we see, we need also to strive to let nothing negative abide in our thought, especially fear about that child. And that's a challenge for all par ents. We may get fearful, whether it's about the children interacting with their friends, or about things that we're living with under our roof.
Can you give us an example of what you're talking about here? A good example of the healing that can take place as we pray and cling to those Godlike qualities concerns a girl who was an only child of a mentally ill single mother. And at age nine she'd ride the bus into the city after school and sell drugs on the street. When she arrived at our home she was in the ninth grade and a gang member, and she was flunking out of school — when she wasn't being kicked out of fighting or smoking Beyond all the hardened labels, I saw a bright young lady, with glimpses of integrity where there had been theft, peace where there'd been anger. I saw some meekness of strength and security instead of dependency on gang activity, which she had originally taken on as a symbol of power or for a sense of belonging. Through many months of quite a bumpy road living together in the same household, I kept clinging to those spiritual qualities, and I saw and watched them develop in that child. And we grew to love each other dearly. This young lady went on to a long-term foster home and eventually to live with her mother again. She's now in high school, taking some honor classes, working part time. She doesn't smoke and, as she says, she no longer "dresses like a gangster," in other words is no longer a gang member.
You mentioned two themes that appear in your work. The other recurring theme that I find in my work is the idea of forgiveness. Several years ago another teenage girl had been placed with us who had been severely sexually abused for several years and had two failed placements at other foster homes. She was involved in drugs, regular promiscuous sex, skipping school, running away, and defied any authority. She was also suicidal. One night while I was sitting on the floor holding her as she was crying and depressed, I prayed to see her as innocent and not as a victim of immorality and abuse. But most of all what came to me was a need to forgive her parents and to rid myself of the anger I held about the apparent scars they had left on her life. I prayed to know that both the child and her parents were a cherished part of God's complete family, at the center of His love. And that they were all innocent as God's spiritual ideas — not just her, but her parents also. Before long she let us hug her. She started sharing more and openly discussed a better standard of morals. She gave up drugs and sexual activity. She was motivated to stay in school. Best of all, the teachers and caseworkers and her friends commented on the transformation they were witnessing in her.
What other thoughts can you share on seeking out the good qualities in these kids? Well, as you get to know the child, I think that those good qualities begin to come to the surface. There's good in all of us; the good is there. We just need to pray to see it.
How do you help the child to see it? Haven't the children sometimes put up walls around themselves? Or maybe accepted those false laws, or labels, about themselves? Right. They have. I think you have to reiterate to them and reiterate in prayer yourself what's going on moment by moment. I start with myself, thinking, "What is God doing right now in this little one's life? And what is He doing in my life?" But I also let them know that they are good. We talk about qualities—Christian qualities. We talk about behaviors, good behavior and its consequences, and things that are all properties of Principle and Love, especially in parenting.
How did you become involved with foster care children? Well, many years ago a Christian Science visiting nurse in attendance at the birth of our first child mentioned the idea that in parenting all of us are, in a sense, foster parents; that God is our real Father-Mother. And I looked up the word foster, and it means to cherish, to forward, to promote growth, to encourage. So we've tried to think of God operating through us as Principle, divine Love. And then about five years ago when the opportunity to become foster parents came along in an advertisement, we accepted it, as it was a concept we'd been working with already in our family.
Were there any questions about your religion? Yes. There were questions as far as how we would handle medical care and so forth. And we stated that we would do whatever the state required. And that was the only question really. And we've had healings with the children, even on the way to the emergency room. We've had flu and colds and different contagious things that have been stopped from running through the family.
Do the girls know that you pray? Yes, they do know I pray.
Do they ask questions about that or want to know about it? They do once in a while. They attend Sunday School with us, and our church has been wonderful and has been very flexible in the Sunday School, depending on who comes, because we have quite a turnover in family, and the needs are different. And so, at one time, they created what's called a "welcome class" in Sunday School, which sometimes exists and sometimes doesn't. It's a class where new students are welcomed in and the Scriptures are taught and Christian Science is presented, but where they're also encouraged to present their views and discuss their ideas about God.
That's wonderful. How about your own daughters? They must learn and grow a lot as well. Yes, they do. And the question I'm mainly asked is always that one. But often what people are really asking is, "Aren't you fearful that your daughters will pick up the deviant behavior that they see around them or live with?" And at the beginning when we started foster care my extended family was somewhat concerned also. They were supportive but concerned. And I think daily we go back to the idea that only good is actually contagious. Erroneous behavior is not. In Miscellaneous Writings Mrs. Eddy states, "If only the people would believe that good is more contagious than evil, since God is omnipresence, how much more certain would be the doctor's success, and the clergyman's conversion of sinners." Whether we're fearful that our own children or the children of friends are being attracted to deviant behavior, or we find that kind of behavior in our house, as God's children we're all really attracted to good. The other thing that I work with is the passage from the Bible, "Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling." In other words, any plaguing behavior also. Our children probably know more than other children their age about deviant behavior, but they also are required to stretch and really use their Christian character — and to grow in that way. I think that after these years our extended family can see that it's been a blessing for all concerned, our own children included.
A prayerful approach to child care
My husband and I have two children. We live just outside a large European city. At the moment my husband is working abroad but comes home every weekend, and I have, during the last two years, worked from home. For ten years from the time the children were born I worked full time outside the home — out of necessity. My husband looked after our oldest son during the first three years, but when our second son arrived, my husband was also working outside the home.
Like many, if not all, working mothers, my main concern during these ten years when I was working outside the home was to see to it that the children were properly cared for. Without proper child care I would have had a hard time giving the necessary attention to my work.
Looking back, I can honestly say that the more I could see that the more I could see that the children were directly cared for by God, the more this was manifested in their and ur lives. We were, for instance, blessed with wonderful people who looked after them. Prayer and the study of the Bible and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy gave me a constant sense of peace, safety, and welfare about the children through the years. Mrs. Eddy's explanation of Japhet, in the Chris tian Science textbook, was especially helpful. The part of that definition I found most helpful was where she speaks of each child being "the child of His care." On occasions when the children were not feeling well, I would spend a lot of time praying, which turned out to be mostly nights. This was, however, never a tiring exercise — rather the opposite — and the healings that followed became a great source of comfort. Yes, it was prayer, or communing with God, that gave me a sense of joy and dominion about child care. It still does.
When I was at work or away on business trips, I always made sure that whoever was caring for the children could reach me whenever there was a need. I felt this was a practical way for me to express my sense of motherhood under the circumstances and in this way also to the best of my ability live up to my legal responsibility as a parent. I always gave careful instruction that I was to be contacted if the children were not well. But most of all I prayed daily to know that each member of the family was Goddirected, that each one was cared for by God, Love. We have had many proofs of this fact. And it has been proved to us that God communicates directly with children.
For instance, on one occasion two years ago our ten-yearold son was to go on a sevenhour flight on his own to visit a very good friend of his. Three days before he was due to leave he became ill. He went to bed early in the afternoon. The symptoms did not seem serious. However, when I came to his room a few hours later, he looked as though he were awake but he did not respond to me when I talked to him or react when I touched him. I was overcome by fear. I turned around and said aloud: "Father, I know he is all Yours and that he can hear Your voice."
I then called a Christian Science practitioner, and together we established the fact that children do not need a medium like a human parent to tell them the truth that they are the children of God, the Father and Mother of all. God, divine Mind, has a direct line of communication to each of His ideas.
During this conversation I felt my peace returning After the call I went back to my son and found he had closed his eyes and was sleeping normally. I left the room to attend to our younger son, and while doing so, I said to this boy, "We have to know that your brother is all right. He needs our support."
Immediately this little one said to me with startling conviction and authority, "Error has to be quiet and stop bothering us any longer!" Within seconds a voice called out from the other room, "I am feeling much better," whereupon our younger son ran in to his brother and jumped up on his bed and said, "Yes and I helped you!" God had indeed talked directly to both of them. Two days later the older son went on a transatlantic flight for the first time on his own and had a wonderful holiday.
