The Old Schoolhouse Magazine

Where Did
All the Superheroes Go?

When Monday morning hits, the last thing we homeschooling parents feel is the ability to leap over tall buildings with a single bound. However, I believe that the exclusive power to parent that rests in us moms and dads is tantamount to what big-screen superheroes possess—only our power is real, every day of the week. No matter how vulnerable we may feel.

This revelation will change your life: As a mom or dad operating in your God-given role as a parent, you are the most powerful person in the world, in that sphere.

Your God-given role
is a function that
no one else has the
capacity to fill.

Your God-given role is a function that no one else has the capacity to fill. It’s uniquely yours to maintain and protect and develop to its highest possibility. Only you have the authority to fully employ all of your resources, both human and material, to impart and impose your vision upon your sphere to get the job done. However, accompanying this privilege are vital decisions only you can make in order to see the fruit you long for. Your choices will shape your children’s destinies.

Let me illustrate. Babies are born in House A and in House B.

In House A, Mom and Dad enjoy baby for six weeks with Mom home on leave from her career. Before they know it, it’s time for Mom to go back to work, place baby in childcare, and continue pursuing her meaningful and gainful employment. After all, diapers get old, and all that stuff isn’t very glamorous compared to moving on the fast track of upward mobility. Or perhaps Dad doesn’t see value in Mom’s being home with baby and insists she generate income.

Every situation cannot be painted with one broad brush, so please hear my heart. There are many and varied circumstances. I don’t want to bring condemnation to those who find themselves currently dependent on others for their child’s daily care, yet we must come into the full realization of what our choices are doing to the next generation.

In our broken world, countless women
have been abandoned, abused, or wid-
owed and find themselves living with the
ominous task of caring for their children
as a single parent for at least a season.
Men, too, have been deserted and left to
bear the weight of raising kids on their
own. Hear me well: God’s grace is suf-
ficient ( 2 Corinthians 12: 9)! He is still a
father to the fatherless and a defender
of widows (Psalm 68: 5, NIV). Whatever
the case, Mom has been taken out of her
God-given sphere of motherhood. The
responsibility, joy, and privilege of nurtur-
ing her baby and managing his young life
have been handed over to someone else
for most of this little one’s waking hours.