Sermon “Parental Love” Rev. Rali Weaver

May 10, 2009

First Church and Parish in Dedham

I am so glad today that along with the celebration of

motherhood we are celebrating all the many forms of parenthood. Truthfully I chose to do this because we are not often in worship together to celebrate Father’s day and I think Father’s often get gypped out of any recognition in worship. Not only that but the truth is that there are many kinds of families. Many happy children are connected to families with only one parent, one mommy or one daddy or sometimes there are two mommies or two daddies, some families there is a grandmother and or grandfather serving as primary guardian and some children have two sets of family’s. Celebrating Mother’s Day or Father’s Day alone can be sort of complicated. And so I think it is good and right that today we should celebrate parenthood in all of it’s many forms.

Did you know that there actually is a Parents’ Day? In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed into law the resolution unanimously adopted by Congress, which established the fourth Sunday of every July as Parents' Day. According to the Congressional Resolution, Parents’ Day was established in order to "recognize, uplift, and support, the role of parents in the rearing of children."

Maybe you already knew about Parents’ Day but this came as a surprise to me. Mother’s Day and Father’s Day have become such commercial recognitions that a celebration that recognizes the difficulties and complexities of the human family and the struggles of rearing children seems like a long overdue recognition to me.

In doing research though I found that The National Parents’ Day Council actually has a limited view of parenting that is at odds with my own sense of what the nature of family truly is.

For example on their website it states and I quote:

“In every culture and time period, the family has stood as the most fundamental human institution. Family is the starting point of life, the sustainer of well-being, and the school of love. A family begins with the joining together of man and woman, husband and wife, becoming father and mother – and parents. The most powerful of human bonds is the parent-child relationship.”

Now some of that I agree with whole-heartedly. The Parent Child relationship is a fundamental human institution. Children without that bond often suffer great abandonment. When that bond is compromised by abuse or neglect or substance abuse the child suffers.

I know from my years of experience teaching children from broken homes how the health of the parent to child bond can liberate or restrict a child’s growth.

I chose our readings today because I think they illustrate the tender dance between parent and child. As Kahlil Gabrin states in those common lines “your children are not your children, they are the son’s and the daughters of life longing for itself”.

This is the powerful magic of child rearing, that many parents know instinctively and some never learn. That children who are born from you are not you. In order to facilitate them growing into their own unique being there is a delicate and tender dance between teachings and freeing that must take place. There is great risk involved in letting children learn from their mistakes and be their own person, and this is why from my vantage point Parenthood is a most noble profession and deserves celebration.

But here is where I disagree. It is not whether a mother and a father can hold together their relationship that makes a family.

I have seen too many unhappy couples create chaos in children’s lives to believe that.

But it is the loving bond within a family that allows for that tender dance that exists between a child and their care-giving adult that can liberate them both. And in a country that promotes freedom of thought and liberty I believe it is this tender dance that we should be promoting with our holiday not some cookie cutter stamp version of what a family is supposed to look like.

Just like people families come in all shapes and sizes. The key ingredient to any family is not its demographic make-up but the quality of love it contains.

To say that Parents must be mothers and fathers is as bad as saying only Mother’s cook and clean and change diapers and only Father’s work and provide for the household. I know plenty of families where these stereo types are not true..

There is no perfect formula for a family --only love.

I have been wracking my brain to find an illustrative story from my own childhood to share with you today, to give an example of the chemistry I think is involved in parenting.

I was a very hyperactive child, who needed much monitoring. It was difficult for my parents and I know they did the best they could with my limitless energy. The thing that I remember though was how my mother would entertain all of my big ideas. For example when I was 9 I decided I could make a taco piñata out of a giant round papier-mâché shell. (We were studying Mexico in school and I promised to bring the piñata)

My mother just let me have at it. She gave me glue and water and a bowl and plenty of tissue paper and left me alone with my friend Leigh Regan in the basement to make it.

We worked for hours and when we were through we even found a bit of crepe paper to represent the hot sauce. It was the roundest taco you have ever seen but it did look like a taco.

When I called my mother down to see it she oooed and ahhed and confessed “I hate to admit that I didn’t think you could do it, but here it is a big fat taco, its perfect.”

Now I was proud of that taco before my mother came into the basement, but when she admitted her own reservations (that she had not even hinted at before) I was even prouder.

And this is where I think the dance comes in. As I see it now it must have been quite excruciating for my mother who was an artist in many ways, to leave me to work on that by myself, knowing as she did that I was going to try to make something out of that big fat round ball that couldn’t be made. Maybe this is why she went upstairs and left us in the basement. She gave me the freedom to make my own mistake. And that time it paid off. There are countless other times my mother did the same thing and I ended up making a mess, or hurting myself. But from every experience I learned something new because my mother was there to share it with. Allowing me the freedom to venture out on my own she allowed me to experiment and learn for myself.

This is the delicate and difficult dance of Parenting.

A friend recently told me a story of her own teen years that I think illustrates this dance even better.

As she tells it she was just about 13 and just forming her own opinions and ideas about life, and she went to her parents to discuss them and found that they did not agree. This infuriated her 13 year-old self and so after a period of discussion it turned to argument and she was swearing and yelling at her parents.

Her mother stood up and raised her hand to her as if to hit her, but turned away (saying later that she realized her daughter was so angry she might just hit her back).

This is a good example of the dance of parenthood, which sometimes requires retreat.

Her father then took her by the arm and led her into his office. Realizing that her mother needed a break and he sat her down and said “Talk to me”.

That is all he said: “Talk to me” and these words opened in my friend the words she needed to say how ignored she felt, how misunderstood, how alone. These are all feelings that are normal to a 13 year-old girl, and by opening the door and giving her a place to discuss them without judgement, she no longer felt a need to act them out.

I know this is not always so easy.

There are no magic words or perfect moves. And most of Parenting is about making it up as you go along.

And this is why I think Parents deserve more recognition and more support. Not just Mother’s and Father’s, or nuclear or traditional families but all adults who strive to love with a loose hold allowing the freedom and the nourishment necessary for every individual to grow into their own unique being.

I hope this year 15 years after the founding of Parents’ Day that we can reclaim it. And make it our own. Parents come in all shapes and sizes and it is the quality of that parenting we should celebrate.

May it be so.