Many have asked us how we came up with the name – USS Parenting. Actually it was quite easy. We found many elements of nautical navigation dovetail easily into symbolizing the countless components in making parenting a successful and fulfilling life-long adventure. Once we started down the path, it was hard for us to stop! So today is Part One on USS Parenting – helping your family to become a GREAT family.
Parenting is a journey rather than a destination.
Our roles as Moms and Dads are never completely finished. There are certainly ports of call akin to milestones in life like watching our children take their first steps, beginning first grade, graduation from high school, marriage, and that first grandchild, but the journey will take a lifetime.
Every ship needs a good Captain and a good first-mate.
God has assigned the Captain’s role to Dad and the first-mate’s role similarly to Mom. And both roles are vital to the health of the ship, the prosperity of its journey, and its very existence. Neither role is more important than the other, but the roles are different. The ship will flounder if it has two Captains on board or two first-mates on board. It ideally needs one of each.
If, however, you find yourself going through this parenting journey without a partner, be encouraged as God holds you in special regard throughout the Gospels. God is the father to the fatherless, and can make any family whole if He is allowed in.
Every good ship needs a good crew, and the best training that can be mustered.
Successful parenting is not just having “good kids.” It is not about being the greatest dad or the greatest mom. The mere notion that you can start a new “program” on Monday and have a “new child” by Friday is just nonsense. Every member of the crew (your family) has an important role to fill.
Sailing from Los Angeles to Hawaii is possible whereas swimming there is not. A ship can get caught up in currents and riffs that can take it to both good and bad destinations.
None of us will get to our intended destinations without relying on a good ship and a good crew. Trying to go it alone is fool-hearty.
Wise navigation takes us on meaningful and heart-felt journeys that are the jewels of a lifetime. But if we somehow follow or allow ourselves to be aimlessly swept along with the latest fads or trying to keep up with the Jones’s, we can become lost or even ship-wrecked.
Experiences range from the calm doldrums surrounding a tropical island to the most treacherous perfect storm around the Cape of Good Hope.
There are seasons of peace and other seasons of challenge. We may visit the same stage of life with our different children only to face night and day contrasts between them because each child is unique and different.
It is almost impossible to know where you are going unless you know where you are.
At any point in the parenting journey, it is insufficient to only know the direction that you are heading and your speed. Every one of us is a woven myriad of life-experiences that we have had up to any given point in time. What worked for one child rarely works the same way for the second because their starting points and their life journeys are so different.
To ignore this truth would be like trying to take the headings and speeds that you would take to sail from Florida to Spain and expect them to get you to the same destination if you were to start the voyage from Alaska instead.
There are no real short-cuts from Point A to Point B, but there are certainly many possible detours and tourist traps along the way.
We adults are always looking for the latest and greatest short-cut to something, be it weight loss, fame, riches, fitness, and yes all fulfilling families. Most if not all of these short-cuts are distractions and illusions. Making families and parenting happen is genuine (hard) work — no matter what the cost.
