A friend of mine responded to one of my Instagram stories of my kid’s free interpretive dancing to their favorite song with the comment: Your kids seem like they have the best lives.
To which I responded:
I hope they will look back on their childhoods with a sense of joy. My husband went on a hike with a spiritual development pastor and was asked: “what was the prevailing spirit in your homes growing up?” This question of what was the dominant atmosphere or mood during your childhood is important because the impact can be far-reaching.
We had a long discussion after my husband’s hike and tried to define what the prevailing spirit was for our individual childhoods and in our home now. With that said, for my husband’s household growing up, the prevailing spirit was: fear and legalism and for my childhood household: fear and oppression/depression. After defining our childhood experience, we did a candid assessment of the trends and mood in the household in which we are raising our kids in and what we hope or are trying to create. We are intentional about cultivating a sense of and experience of: joy, love, accountability, forgiveness, and obedience to the word of God (that last one sounds hella intense if you aren’t a Christian or if you have trauma from toxic Christianity, but trust me when I note it is not manipulative or hate-filled faith). To cultivate a spirit of joy and accountability well, we as parents and as imperfect people, acknowledge our mistakes openly and our kids are free to call us out, without recourse, when we have parenting fails or something we say or do does not align with what we are teaching or profess to believe and we make sure they get a chance to fully engage in their humanity without fear. We are trying to do the hard work of dealing with our emotions and brokenness in real-time while being as transparent about it as their ages and maturities allow because we want so much more for them, including more spiritual and emotional freedom then we had or could have ever imagined growing up.
Post Scriptum:
To make sure we are on the same page:
What is meant by prevailing– (from a biblical perspective) Predominant; having more influence; prevalent; superior in power. (Example: The love of money and the love of power are the prevailing passions of men.)
What is meant by the spirit of – A pervasive or essential attitude, quality, or principle. The actual though unstated sense or significance of something. What as the constant atmosphere or feeling of your childhood home?
What did you say?