Thoughts From Fathering Children While They Are Sick
A father's reflection on having suffering kids
Hard Times
This has been a hard winter. Since Thanksgiving, we have had a full month, at least, of Rickman sickness. Fevers, coughs, headaches, even some vomiting. My wife is usually the toughest, but this last week I was the only one not to suffer with symptoms. Sara Beth and the kids had to duck out of all their usual weekly commitments, instead sitting at home in misery together. When I got home after work each day, they weren’t even happy to see me (except for little Abigail, who always runs into my arms), as they had been so miserable for so long.
Little Clementine has had it the worst. Every night, she is waking with terrible coughing spells. During the day she is too miserable to enjoy much of anything. She wants to be held by her daddy, who is also holding Abigail. I can hold both of them at once for a bit, but I get pretty tired. We have a carrier that allows me to carry one of my back and another in my arms. I get tired after 30 minutes or so. Constant need and dissatisfaction. We have had more than one day of flipping the television on and waiting for the end of the day to come.
Humility from Helplessness & Loss
There is nothing quite so humbling as having a sick child. Most maladies in the daily life of a father can be somewhat directly treated. If my son is hungry, I can feed him. If my daughter is getting picked on, I can intercede. If my wife is feeling overwhelmed, I can take on some of her tasks. Yet if one of my children gets sick, there is nothing I can do to take their suffering away. There are some general best practices like drinking plenty of fluids and getting plenty of rest. Even so, the only thing to be done in the face of many illnesses is simply to wait.
The Lord in his wisdom gave us these amazing immune systems that keep hundreds of thousands of bacteria in balance and remove new things that upset the balance. Even so, sometimes they can move quite slowly for my taste. Sometimes people’s immune systems can become compromised, such that they remain sick for long periods of time. Chronic and congenital conditions can result in long seasons of suffering for many. Sometimes medical treatment for one condition can lead to a host of problems resulting in more conditions.
Can you believe that in some places in history people expected to lose half of their children in the first five years? Fatality rates for children has historically been very high until the advent of modern hygiene. Even in Western countries today, miscarriages are somewhere around 10%. The death of children has been a very common occurrence throughout history. Parents like Sara Beth and myself are rare, having been untouched by death. We realize how privileged we are, and how warped and entitled this can make our worldview.
We Are Always Close to Suffering & Loss
I remember my wife’s first delivery going poorly for a long time. I knew that breech births sometimes result in the loss of life. I retreated for a moment to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, praying to God and wondering if my wife and daughter were going to die, wondering if there was anything I could do to prevent tragedy. God was faithful and delivered them both. Even so, God does not always save. Sometimes people suffer. Sometimes they die. I do not believe in Prosperity Gospel. Just because the Lord loves me does not mean that I cannot lose a child. For a season of my life, I couldn’t sleep well. I loved my son so much that I would wonder if my faith could survive his dying as he lay sleeping in my arms. I imagined all kinds of scenarios in which the boy would suffer and/or die. People lose children. What is to be said about such things?
I understand why it is that so many people obsess about these things. Some people grow overprotective of their children, refusing to let them play outside, play with other kids, take risks. They imagine they can save their children from suffering and pain. To a degree, they are correct. Sara Beth and I choose not to let our children do many dangerous things. The only difference is in where we draw that line. Some would look upon us and think we are too worried about some things; others would look at how we parent and say we are toying with our children’s lives.
The Threat of Safetyism
Safetyism is an ideology (set of beliefs held by a group) or culture (beliefs and norms for a society) that places self-perceived safety, especially the feeling of being protected from disagreeable ideas and information, above all others. It is based on the belief that it is harmful (including, but not limited to, being medically harmful) to experience uncomfortable emotions. Compared to prior generations, one of the main differences is the belief that the world should not be organized according to what is right or wrong, but according to what is safe or unsafe.
The term was coined by Pamela Paresky and promulgated by The Coddling of the American Mind, which described its status as "a sacred value", meaning that it was not possible to make practical tradeoffs or compromises with other desirable things (e.g., for people to be made to feel uncomfortable in support of free speech or learning new ideas).
-Wikipedia
I noted a long time before Covid came the heightened sensitivity to risk and sickness of our culture. I have known many who would previously have been called hypochondriacs, but who have been somewhat normalized in the era of people wearing face masks in public. I have known many who take their children to the doctor or to urgent care when their bodies would almost certainly take care of themselves. I know many who have a constant deluge of minor symptoms indicating a new disease. There are many whose understanding of self and of the world is primarily germ-oriented, rather that spirit-oriented as it should be. Others are perceived, not necessarily as made in God’s image, but as potential vectors of disease. Many don’t realize it, but this can be a worldview with massive implications for our social fabric. After a couple of years of social distancing, people being fired, and families being broken apart, I don’t think many would deny me this point.
To be clear: I do not think it is a sin to be sick. Yes, Jesus forgave sin, cast out demons, and healed sickness in his ministry. Yes, sickness and death and signs of a fallen creation that will no longer be present in the New Creation. Yes, supernatural healing is available to us today, and we should pray for the healing of those who suffer. Even so, a thorn remaining in the flesh is not indicative of God’s anger or disappointment. Rather, as we are told in Hebrews, the Lord disciplines the one he loves. I truly believe that sickness can be and often is a vehicle for growing in righteousness, teaching us not to be dependent upon our feelings, but instead to lean upon the Lord.
Concomitantly, it is not a sin to be safe, to mitigate risk, to show consideration for the potential risk one carries for others. As with so many other things in life, I believe living wisely requires walking between extremes. Even so, I think short term concern for the avoidance of pain increasingly leads to long term weakness and spiritual anemia. We need suffering and pain to be fully developed people. We need times of wilderness to appreciate times of bounty. We need to take risks from time to time so that we learn to trust in the Lord, also learning to face the consequences of our actions. Right now our culture is leaning too much in one direction; I think it is the job of the church to model a better balance. Christians should be raising more resilient children than the world. I am not sure we are currently doing that very well.
Resolve for Resiliency
When my children develop sickness, when they cry about not wanting to be sick anymore, when they are too tired and strung out to rejoice in being alive, I feel that temptation to pump them full of drugs, drag them to a doctor, isolate them from the world. But I don’t want to live in a world filled with people like that. Nor do I want my children to see themselves as such fragile creatures. I want them to trust in the Lord and the bodies he has given them. I want them to live fully, trusting that God is on the other side of sickness and death.
That requires that I model these things for them, that I hold them while they are sick and speak words of comfort to them about God’s presence with them. I grabbed Clementine’s little face two days ago and prayed over her. Then I did the same for Abigail. She wanted me to hold her instead, so my prayers were met with her screams. Then I picked her up and she was quiet.
We are witnessing right now what happens to children when they are treated like fragile little lambs. They cannot deal with struggle or adversity. They cannot function, problem solve, negotiate. I do not want my children to be like that. I want them to be strong and confident, innovative and capable.
So at this point, I think that means letting them struggle and suffer, holding their hands all the while. If things escalate to a life-or-death place, then of course I’ll take action. But with things short of that, knowing there is still risk involved, I am going to teach my children to trust in the Lord and the bodies he has given them.
I am hoping that there are other parents who do the same with their own children. I would really like to have tough grandchildren, too.
With so many things in life, it is impossible to know the outcome of decisions we make. One can make educated decisions by extrapolating from statistics. Even so, life is not about making the most educated decisions. God and the odds easily ruin the smartest decisions. Babel, anyone? Life is, rather, best navigated with one’s principles, and with a concern for the long term and unintended consequences of our actions.
The Distinctly Christian Comfort
Christians, more than any other people, should be able to live in such a way confidently, trusting that our children are in the Lord’s care. I would be devastated to lose a child. Even so, I must remember the wisdom of Job when losing his own children: “Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Such a way of life is only possible for those who know that God makes all things right in the end, that he cares for the little ones, that he even loves them more than we do: “Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows” (Luke 12:6-7). Indeed, before my children were ever mine, they are his, right? My job is not to protect them from all harm, as my heavenly Father likewise does not protect me from all harm. My job is to love and minister to my children until we are separated by death. I trust that my Father can take care of them just fine without my intervention:
“But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.”
Isaiah 43:1-2
Blessed be the name of the Lord from everlasting to everlasting. God is good and his mercy endures forever!
I have had similar thoughts go through my head with each stage in family life. I wonder if I would be able to handle the loss of a family member or even if I could handle it, if I could continue in the ministry. There is peace knowing that I will be reunited with my family in heaven, but that doesn't change the realities of grief and mourning until that day. In these times, I reflect on how God views his creation and how he sees the humans who are going through life and the many who reject his grace and love.
As for what the children handle, I would say that we are similar. My wife and I let a lot of things go that other parents would cringe at. Sadly, one of those things is letting the children experiment on a playground without our hands on at all times. And I agree on the hospital trips as well; parents are just too quick to rush to the hospital for the smallest things. I remember reattaching skin on my oldest daughter's eyelid; she came out with a hardly noticeable scar.
I use that to introduce my next point: Parents seem to be going through trained helplessness. While I think it is most evident in the education system, where they are told and trained to believe that only "certified" teachers are able to teach children; I think that we can see it in other areas of life. Anywhere people are willing to give up control to an "expert" is an area where people are trained to be helpless; and anywhere the people are trained to be helpless, they carry that into their parenting. And I think that goes into the areas of safety as well. How is a parent supposed to keep their children safe if they aren't the experts on safety? Or how can they keep their children safe if the "experts" on safety are always saying it's not safe?
No. My children, like yours, are going to grow up resilient. Not in the cold and uncaring sense, but in the "I see you and care for you and you will be okay" sense. Trip and fall? Get up, brush off the dust and move on. Fell off the bike? Clean and bandage any wounds and move on. Going through sickness? My wife and I will give the appropriate comforts and let you know we're here. Through it all, my children will learn that getting hurt isn't something to be afraid of. That in these times, God still has each of us in his hands and we can rely on him to see us through, however it turns out.
Thank you for your thoughts and reflections.
~Nathan
While not entirely about parenting children, this post reminded me about how some churches handled the Covid crisis. When looking back in history, many times it was Christians who risked their own health tending to the sick. Statistics will show that many churches remained closed for far too long, and now several are still struggling to remain open because many of the members have failed to return. Sometimes you have to trust that God will protect you while your jeopardizing your own safety for the benefit of others.