Parenting on Purpose

The little boy appeared tentative. There were so many of them, and all of them seemed somewhat scary. Yet he detected a certain friendliness about them; as if they didn't really care about how he looked or how he behaved - only that he was a child just like them - a special and unique individual - just like each one of them.  Slightly hesitant at first, but with a gradual aura of confidence, he took his first step towards them - he had decided to join the community of grace. Just a few months back, my family decided to join a new small group community in our church. As newcomers in a strange environment, we were unsure of what the group would be like. This was especially since we did not know anyone in the group. There were naturally fears that we would not be able to "click" with this new group; or worse - that we would ease into a group which discussed superficial matters more than deep personal concerns. All our fears melted away on the day of the first meeting, w...

I had been puzzled by this issue for the past few years. During this time, I frequently allowed the sequence of events to run through my mind. What did I do? How was it like for me? All questions drew a blank for me, as if my mind had blocked out that stage of my life. And it did not help when my wife shared her own experiences and asked if I had encountered a similar occurrence. I felt like a character from The Bourne Identity, one without a past, a man without a childhood. Things started about two years ago, when Z came into our lives. As new parents, we began asking questions about how we should parent our child. And we began to look into our past for the answers. My wife would start by sharing details about what her room looked like when she was a child, all the little toys that she had, and all the games she used to play - even when she was as young as 3 or 4. I remember listening to her, trying to recall what things were like for me when I was her ag...

It started out  at first  as a sense of anticipation - I was busy packing for our upcoming trip to the Southern islands of Phuket and Krabi in Thailand last month, when it suddenly dawned on me how precious the time was going to be and just how much I was looking forward to spending two whole weeks with my husband and son, just the three of us, away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.  I had been waiting for the break from housework and the everyday routines of life, but as I thought about all our previous trips, I realised that our holidays have been more than that. They have been times of building into one another's lives and having the luxury of space and personal moments to make invaluable deposits into one another's love tanks. Holidays have also been a time to work on areas of growth we have been wanting to see at a particular stage in time, in our marital and familial lives collectively. Moreover, we have noticed that our son seems to blossom the mo...