Responsive, Not Reactive: Mothering in Light of Past Experiences
I grew up in Florida and moved to the northeast with my husband nearly fifteen years ago. We both were excited to live in an area of the United States that has four seasons because we had had our fill of hot weather. There’s a joke that Florida has two seasons: hot and hotter. We were ready for cold and colder! So much so that when summers rolled around those first years after we moved, we had bad attitudes about it. Not the heat! Not again! “Ugh, I hate summer,” I can remember complaining. The whole summer season those first couple of years was one long, bad reaction from me.
I’m not proud to admit my reaction, but I know I’m not alone. Bad reactions are common after an experience that we dislike. We can find a similar pattern with many experiences that we have negative associations with: I didn’t like that, so I am going to avoid it, disparage it, reject it, or do the opposite. This makes sense on an intuitive level: of course, I want something different from an experience I didn’t like. And it makes sense on a visceral level: that felt bad, and I don’t want to feel that way again. We can look across most areas of life and identify ways we have reacted to a negative past experience. This includes in our mothering.
Reactions and Responses
These experiences can move us in two contrasting directions: reactions or responses. Reactions are generally considered problematic and not regarded as what is best or ideal. They are largely instinctive—often described as knee-jerk, which captures their reflexive nature. They can be irrational or jaded, tending to see only certain things while missing more important things. A response, on the other hand, entails thoughtfulness, consideration, and intentionality. Most anyone would agree it would be better to be responsive than reactive. Easier said than done, though! Thankfully, this is an area where our Christian faith is really helpful. There’s a momentum to the Christian life that is always interested in how we can increase our expression of love for God and for others. Walking with Jesus is to be on the path of growing in thoughtfulness, consideration, and intentionally—all for love’s sake. Though this is a narrow path, it’s one that we can trust God keeps us on. He helps, and his presence with us gives us courage to do hard things.
Identifying Reactive Mothering
So here’s a hard thing I’m going to ask you to do: Can you identify areas you react in your mothering that connect to something from your past? Here are two examples to get you thinking:
One mom grew up with parents who enforced a rigid, early bedtime rule. Her memories of bedtime are bitter. She remembers long nights; sometimes she was lonely, sometimes afraid. She remembers being thirsty, but not asking for water because she was forbidden to leave her room. Now a mother herself, her reflex with bedtime is to go in the opposite direction. She lets her kids guide the evening. She leaves it up to them to say when they are ready for bed. She has reacted to a negative childhood experience by rejecting any whiff of it in her own home.
Another mom was a “latchkey kid” growing up. With no supervision in the afternoons, she often neglected her homework and, to this day, feels she didn’t live up to her potential. With school-aged kids now, she is involved in every aspect of their schooling. Her reaction has cemented into a vow: her kids will live up to their academic potential, and she holds herself to that vow by her hyper-attentiveness.
What about you? Can you see an area—or areas—in your mothering where you have reacted to a negative past experience? If one hasn’t come to mind, then think about negative experiences you’ve had and how you handle that same scenario as a parent.
4 Principles for Responsive Mothering
If you have now identified a reaction, you might be wondering how to evaluate it. Reactions make intuitive, visceral sense, after all, so how do we know if it is a reaction that warrants a different response? That’s an important question! Here is where we need to discern biblical wisdom about a matter at hand so we can better weigh how to respond to it in our parenting. Here are four principles to do that work:
1. Wisdom acknowledges that there is not one approach to non-moral matters.
A bedtime routine, for example, is not a moral issue in and of itself. Different families will have different ways of doing bedtime for their kids, and it’d be incorrect to say there is only one way to go about it.
2. Wisdom recognizes that one experience that results in harm for one person wouldn’t necessarily harm a different person.
For example, some kids whose parents aren’t involved with their homework don’t find that to have a negative impact on their studies.
3. Wisdom takes into account as much as possible before proceeding in a certain direction (Proverbs 18:15).
For example, with bedtime, we consider our kids’ ages and stages and what their daily functioning is like with more or less sleep each night; we seek advice from other parents and hear how they approach bedtime;[1] and so on and so forth!
4. Wisdom seeks to respond with particularized forms of love.
This principle is the culmination of the previous three. We seek to love our kids in particular, following the example of Christ.[2] That means we need to discern their needs, their strengths, their weaknesses and, from that, formulate a response that will bless and edify them. When it comes to non-moral matters, we can and should consider our own past experiences and how we were impacted. Our experiences are valid and worth consideration (doing so is an application of the third wisdom principle). But they shouldn’t get the final say in how we proceed with our kids. The utmost concern is loving them well, and, as we hold the four complementary wisdom principles in balance with one another, that concern remains central. As we seek the Lord for understanding—for accurate discernment of who our kids are and what they need—we begin to leave the realm of reactions and move toward the thoughtful, intentional kind of love that mirrors God’s own love for his children.[3]
Finally, you might be thinking what I’m thinking as I write: this sounds like a lot of work! It is. Moving from reactions to reasoned responses is really hard work, so I’d be remiss to not point you to the Lord as you set your heart to this work. As a counselor, I speak regularly with people who are seeking to change. The joy of my work is that the way our God loves is that he never says “change” for change’s sake. He changes you because he loves you. He changes you because he wants the best for you, and being remade in Jesus’ image is the best you could be. He also never says “change” but then hangs back to see what you’ll make of yourself. You won’t do this really hard work solo. He is working in you, and any call to change is a reminder of his investment in you and your flourishing. Any call to change in our mothering is a reminder of his investment in you and your children’s flourishing. So we can get to work with hope, remembering that God started so many good works in us—and he will be faithful to finish all of them.[4]
[1] Proverbs 12:15
[2] Most compellingly, we see Jesus demonstrating particularized love in his ministry. He spoke to and loved individuals as individuals—and therefore in vastly different ways. Consider his varied approaches to the woman at the well, the rich young ruler, to Peter after he denied him, and to the disciples when they doubted his care during the thunderstorm.
[3] Proverbs 2:3-5; James 1:5
[4] Philippians 1:6
